


expectations

by ceruleanstorm



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, High School AU, Modern AU, Mutual Pining, Raydia, Raydia Week 2018, but it's subtle mutual pining, callum and soren are good bros, casually shoves my love for hayley kiyoko down your throat, fifth graders wreaking havoc, harrow is the best dad and ally, how dysfunction can a bunch of queer high schoolers get? we gonna find out, sips that hate viren juice, useless lesbians and a one disaster bisexual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 04:09:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16442720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceruleanstorm/pseuds/ceruleanstorm
Summary: "I think you're being too hard on yourself.""Maybe we're both being too hard on ourselves."When Callum sets Rayla up on a blind date she feels wildly unprepared for, Claudia helps her get ready.written for Raydia Week 2018. prompt: modern AU





	expectations

**Author's Note:**

> y’all how GOOD was The Dragon Prince? Cool world building, characters you fall in love with, deep thematic meanings embedded naturally within an already fantastic story line? A show in a fantasy setting that doesn’t trigger me? Aaron Ehasz you did it again, you saucy bitch. 
> 
> but seriously, A+ job TDP. I’ve fallen down the hole, and I’m gonna die on the hill that is Rayla and Claudia. (@tdpofficial please don’t hurt either of them, please I’ll give you my first born).
> 
> this AU has been a month in the making. Getting to explore Rayla and Claudia’s very relatable characters- to me at least- was really fun. There is a slight chance, however, that I may have had too much fun.
> 
> this fic has equal potential to be great or a disaster. either way it’s a treasure hunt. have fun!
> 
> (little heads up for homophobic slurs, there’s not a lot, but it’s there)

“Callum, if I cut my hand off, you won’t make me go, right?”

“Ugh, Rayla, stop threatening to cut your hand off just to get out of things, okay?”

The Moon Elf pursed her lips. “But what if it just, say, fell off? And then I wouldn’t have to go right?”

“If it falls off- Stop it! Stop with the hand thing, it’s just weird!” Callum threw his sketchbook down and turned to scowl at her. Of all the years she’d known the younger human boy, Rayla knew that he was easiest to pester when he was trying to concentrate on something, especially if the thing he was trying to concentrate on was his drawing. This particular tactic she’d picked up from his younger brother. “You’re going tonight, you pinky promised, or ring finger promised. Do you have a pinky? Ugh, it doesn’t matter. _You’re_ going, so stop trying to get out of it.”

“Well… what if I was sick?” tried Rayla.

Callum let out a long sigh. “I know elves don’t get “sick” like humans, Ray. You can’t exactly contract the same diseases if the pathology is different, you’ve said that like eight different times. So if you’re going to bother me, could you at least get a little more creative with your excuses?”

 “You want me to go _back_ to the hand thing?” It was hard to keep the mischief out of her voice.

 “No!”

Snickering, Rayla lay back in the soft green grass. In truth, today was just another typical Saturday, with tonight being the only real exception. They were hanging out in Callum’s back yard, if one could even call it that, it more or less resembled a freaking Katolian resort with it’s perfectly cut grass and extensive rolling hills, blooming vegetable and flower garden and gorgeous expanse of native trees that was practically a mini forest. There was even pond- somewhere. Rayla was not sure she’d ever seen the end of the yard, or if it just turned into a golf course. Afterall the massive “backyard” didn’t even include the infinity pool and adjoining hot tub. That was on the _other_ side of the gigantic mansion.

Callum and Rayla had been spending a lot of time out in the “yard” as of late. The warmth of the Katolian spring was intoxicating to her, not to mention that Callum needed the Vitamin D. Besides that, Harrow was known for encouraging his eldest son to spend more time outside, and at first Rayla assumed this was just another facet of their odd Step-Father-and-Step-Son relationship, but she was beginning to pick up on other reasons. The biggest being it’s where Ezran spent most his time, chasing his glow toad Bait or raising tadpoles in the pond or building mini forts/castles. But also it had been the favorite place of Harrow’s late wife. Apparently, she spent a great deal of time out here. Rayla noticed that only he-and sometimes the boys- were allowed to tend to the garden despite the adequate wait staff on duty. It had been hers, afterall.

So Callum would take his sketchbook and giant bag of art supplies and Rayla would drag all her homework out there and they’d sit on the expansive deck for hours. Callum would sketch the shrubbery and garden as practice for his AP Art class while Rayla would write essays or work through Pre-Cal problems. Sometimes, usually a few hours in, she just flat out gave up and went to go play with Ezran and Bait. That was more fun anyways.

Ezran and Bait were absent today, that was one difference. He was a few districts over spending the day with his friend Ellis and her dog that may or may not have been a wolf. What they were up to one could only imagine, probably hunting goblins unsupervised in a freaking forest. Every twenty minutes or so, Callum’s phone would buzz and he would read whatever wild update his little brother had sent him. Usually it was just a blurry picture of Bait. The other difference is that Rayla hadn’t even begun her homework. She knew, and was beating herself over it the back of her mind, that she should at least _start_ on that major biology assignment, but she couldn’t focus on anything else but this one- but very stupid- thing.

Callum, the nerve of him, had set her up on a date and unfortunately, it was happening tonight. And not just any date, a _blind_ date. She had no _idea_ what stupid human boy he’d set her up with and it made her want to pull her horns out.

“Here’s my new excuse Callum. I _don’t_ want to go.” Rayla huffed, crossing her arms. “How’s that for an excuse?”

He didn’t even look up from the damn book. “It’s not even an excuse.”

“I don’t want to date, Cal! I told you this! A million times!” she shuddered. The Moon Elf had only ever been on one date before, when she was twelve and still in Xadia. It was with a jerk Star Elf, a year and a half older than her. Turned out, he only asked her because his jerk friends dared him too, but she didn’t know that. She was just happy anyone would look at her after well… so it didn’t matter that she didn’t even like him and thought he smelled weird or that her first thought when he asked her was “Ugh! Boys!” They took a walk through the forest one evening; Rayla, being Rayla, tripped on a rock and fell face first into a pile of mud, and before she knew what was happening, that stupid boy and all his stupid friends (who’d appeared from where they were snooping out of the trees) were howling with laughter at the sight of her. To this day, she was pretty sure one of them had filmed the whole thing. She ran all the way home, tears streaming down her muddy face. Later Runaan found her crying in the bathroom and trying to clean all the dirt off her clothes. He only patted her head and said “Chin up, Little One. Love is for fools anyways.” -before heading off to meet his boyfriend at the gym.

Rayla couldn’t imagine this date going any better, or what Runaan would say if he knew she’d agreed to it. He’d probably call her more than a fool.

“You promised. And you said it yourself, Ray, a human promise is like an moon elf bind. So… you’re doing it.”

_When did I say that?_ “I only promised because I thought you were _joking_.”

“Oh come on,” Callum snickered. “Even I know I’m not that good at jokes.” He was met with a very unamused look.

“Ugh, you’re no _fair_. You wouldn’t like it if I set you up with some stranger!” He just shrugged and Rayla let out another strangled noise of frustration before crawling over in the grass to poke him in the shoulder. “Can you at least tell me who I’m seeing?”

“Then it wouldn’t be a _blind_ date. You’ll just have to go and see.” he told her.

“Cal _lum_!”

“Ray _la_!”

“Can I least have a hint?” She was full on in his face now.

Callum’s mouth opened to say something, but he was cut off by the sound of the tall glass doors leading out the “backyard” opening. Turning in tandem, the two watched Claudia step out onto the grandiose pavillion. As almost always was the case, Claudia was laser focused on something she was reading- she wasn’t even really paying attention to where she was going, but she’d been out here so many times she only bumped into maybe like five things?- on her phone. It may have been on her phone, but they both knew, Claudia was reading something.

“Well, would you look at that. Claudia’s here.” Callum said with a wry smile.

Rayla’s head flopped down.  “Oh no.”

“Hey Claudia!” he shouted suddenly, loud enough to trigger Rayla’s flight or fight response. “Over here!”

The yelling caught Claudia’s attention, and she adjusted her course down the steps of the pavillion towards where they were sitting in the grass. _OH. NO._ “Hey Callum!” she called back, “Hey Rayla!”

Forcing a smile, Rayla tried to ignore the way her heart beat sped up, her fingers curling around the soft of the grass. Of course the girl Rayla had a crush on since she’d first seen her just _had_ to be childhood friends with one of her only friends. Claudia, a year older than Callum, was in her grade and in quite a few of her classes. For so long Rayla tried to bury her crush on Claudia. If she could have taken a hatchet to her feelings, she would’ve the second they hit her. Claudia was just another really pretty girl, with seriously cute laugh and quirky yet incredibly kind personality. But she was human. So here Rayla was, a freaking Xadian Moon Elf attending a private Katolian high school, a freak of nature in every single aspect and in completely foreign territory, crushing on her sworn enemy.

But the more Rayla fought her feelings, the more persistent, and resistant to reason, they became. At this point, she was just content to give up the fight and be miserable.

It didn’t help that Callum’s family went way back with Claudia’s family. Her father was the head advisor to Callum’s father (and it stung, a _lot,_ how much Rayla knew he despised elves and fought against any administration that would help bridge the gap between the human kingdoms and elven ones; how he fought against the very program that let Rayla attend that super nice private school with Callum, the program that had indirectly introduced her to his daughter). Harrow and Viren were childhood friends, so Claudia and her brother Soren were childhood friends with Callum and Ezran, despite being a few years older. And although Claudia and her brother didn’t _seem_ to share any their father’s prejudice, Rayla was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Especially since they were _always_ around. The two siblings just came in and out of Harrow’s mansion as they pleased, and Harrow just let them. (For Sun’s sake they probably had keys!) One time Soren passed out in one of the many media rooms. Their had been multiple instances of Rayla walking in on Claudia napping in the library, usually with a book over her head (Rayla always had to force herself to leave and not stare like a _creep_ cause how awkward would it be if she woke up?) Harrow had the cooks keep food the siblings liked on hand, and Claudia ate dinner with them more often then she didn’t, and those nights were _fun,_ Rayla silently eating while drinking in every smile, every laugh, every slightly cluess thing she said while simultaneously trying _not_ to end Callum’s life right at the dinner table every time he and Ezran shared that _look_ and proceeded to giggle.

Rayla should’ve been on guard for Claudia to walk out into the backyard. She did it a lot. Rayla’s mind had just been other places today.

The date.

The date with a stranger she didn’t want to go on because she’d rather date someone she had no chance with.

“Lemme guess,” Callum was saying as Claudia came to sit beside them, tucking her knees under her purple pencil skirt. Rayla’s eyes flitted to the soft black top that hung off her shoulder, the dyed purple tips of her long black hair falling on her chest. “Reading fanfiction?”

“Guilty.” her voice was jubilious, her bright green eyes still glued to her phone. “I found a slow burn AU with beautiful characterization, oh Callum, it’s a dream come true. I’ve been reading -and rereading- it since 3 am.”

This was just normal Claudia behavior to Callum. He’d gone back to his sketchbook. “Mmm, what fandom this time?”

“Leah the Offbeat.” responded Claudia. That didn’t ring any bells for Rayla. Try as she might to keep up with Katolian Pop Culture, she wasn’t quite there. Caring might be a good start. Rayla just knocked it up as another book Claudia had read. There were plenty of those. Then Claudia looked up from her phone and her green eyes caught Rayla’s. “So, what are you guys doing? The usual?” she asked, but Rayla was too busy staring again.

Everything about her was just… perfect. In an almost (almost being the key word) a frustrating way. Rayla was currently fixating on the flawless makeup; the symmetrical eyeliner, coal colored and purple tinted eyeshadow, light lavender lips. Rayla had never been particularly skilled at makeup, and that brought her to her next problem.

In every aspect, Claudia was a freaking prodigy. A rich, hot, prodigy. At academics, at languages, at dance, at piano, at makeup and clothes, literally anything she tried, she was good at. Scratch that, she _excelled_ at it with almost no effort. On top of that she was stunning, probably without the makeup and the clothes and the manicure too. That probably only brought her down to radiating. But Rayla? Rayla just sucked. At like everything. So what that Runaan had said she was the best warrior he’d ever trained, it didn’t matter because she messed everything up. She got confused, nervous at the last minute, and let the self doubt she was plagued with over take her. To hold her own in that fancy school, she had to study almost every waking minute, often staying up late to review things and then slumping into tutoring the next morning. Her academic standing wavered because she froze up during tests, no matter what tips for dealing with anxiety Callum offered. If it weren’t for place on the lacrosse team, track and field, or Harrow’s place in her corner, they probably would have kicked her out by now. Lujanne, her advisor, had warned her how many times now?

And Rayla wasn’t exactly a stunning supermodel either, even by Moon Elf standards, so she wasn’t exactly turning the eyes of humans for good reasons. So there. Plenty of reasons not to chase the childish fantasies of sweeping Claudia of her perfect feet. That’s even if Claudia was- well, it was a foolish thought to entertain.

Runaan had been right. Love was for fools. And unfortunately, Rayla was just another fool.

“Yeah, the usual.” Back in the present, Callum shrugged, digging in his giant bag for another one his “artistic” pencils. Claudia smiled again, and then suddenly was holding her phone up to them.

“Smile!”

A flash and click later, Rayla was blinking rapidly as if Bait had lit up and Callum was moving away from her. He jumped closer to her to be in Claudia’s picture- the picture she had just taken without prompt _or_ warning. “Awh, this is cute.” Claudia twirled her finger in her hair absentmindedly, tilting her head as she looked at the picture. Rayla wasn’t sure what to think of that. Her best guess was that in the picture she looked stupid and shocked, and her leggings were covered in chunks of grass that Callum sprinkled on her everytime she tore some up and threw it on him.

“You should send it to us.” replied Callum.

“M’kay.” Claudia only nodded, visibly texting for a few seconds before returning to her previous fanfiction endeavors. About a second later Rayla’s own phone buzzed and she pulled it out of her pocket. _1 Multimedia Message from claudia ._ Biting her lip, Rayla opened the message. Yep. Shocked, stupid, and covered in grass. _Thanks a lot Callum._ He (also covered in grass) was smiling like a giant dork and doing jazz hands, or something. Because this was _funny_ to him.

It was staring, okay, more like glaring, at her image in the picture that Rayla realized something. _This might be my way out!_ Currently, she was wearing worn violet leggings and plain racerback tank top she knew had been on the floor of her room for the last three weeks, over the same boring light blue sports bra she wore pretty much every day. It was the outfit she’d worn this morning for her run with Harrow and she hadn’t even bothered to change. But this was as nice as her wardrobe got; although Harrow-and even Amaya and even Gren (for some reason?)- had offered to pay for nicer clothes than what she had come with from Xadia, she refused. Harrow was letting her live in his freaking mansion and paying for tuition asking for nothing in return, just because Ezran had begged and Callum had vouched for her, like once. That’s why she worked the freaking pretzel stand at the mall everyday after school; to buy her own clothes, school supplies, and save up for college. To be self sufficient. Maybe to even go back home one day. But a minimum wage after school job meant the clothes she bought from different thrift stores were cheap and mostly served for comfort.

Which brought her to her way out.

“Callum.” she said.

“Yeah?”

“It just occurred to me that I don’t have anything to wear on this date.” Rayla leaned over, and he stared at her with a grimace. “I can’t very well wear this” she gestured downward, “to the date. Can you imagine me, walking into that fancy restaurant to meet this fancy human boy in my workout clothes?”

Claudia perked up, her attention captured. Then she put the phone _down._ “You’re going on a date?”

“Well I was,” Rayla grinned at Callum, victory ringing in her voice, “but unfortunately, I have nothing nice to wear, so I’ll have to cancel-”

“Oh that’s an easy fix!” Claudia was clapping her hands. “If you don’t have any clothes, we’ll just go shopping!”

“What?” Expect it came out more of a “ _wut_?”

“Yeah, we can go shopping and ooh! We can do like a whole makeover thing!” Out of nowhere, Claudia grabbed Rayla’s hand and pulled her up from the grass. It was like Rayla’s brain had just completely stopped working. Right then and there. _She’s holding my hand?????????_ “Just the two of us, no offense Callum.”

“None taken.”

“It’ll be like Cinderella and I’ll be your fairy godmother!” her smile was intoxicating, but Rayla’s heart was beating too fast for her to even think. One thought thought did stick out though, like a knife in her stomach. _Yeah, that’s just the comparison I was hoping for._

Claudia wanted to hang out with her? Since when did that happen, ever? Claudia and Rayla were often around each other often yes, but it was usually Callum and Ezran were there, or at least Callum. They’d never actually been alone together despite so many frequent encounters, and Rayla was at a loss for how to even behave on this… girl’s day out. This was never how she imagined it playing out in her head because she never let it play out in her because it was too painful to think about and oooohhhhhhh, Stars she was fucked. She sent a panicked look Callum’s way. _Get me out of this! Do something, anything!_

“That’s a great idea, Claudia!” Callum chirped, throwing his art supplies back in his bag. Rayla just stood there in the wake of his betrayal, Claudia’s hand still in hers, making soft panicked noises. “I’m sure Rayla would have _lots_ of fun.”

Rayla sent him a look that she hoped communicated _This is your last day on earth, Prince._

“You’re okay if I drag her away for a while, Cal?” Claudia was looking at the younger boy with those crystal green eyes. Rayla began to worry her hand was sweating, because that was _just_ what she needed.

Slinging his bag over his shoulder and tucking his beloved sketchbook beneath his arm, Callum shrugged. “She’s all yours. With Ez and you guys out of the house I finally I have some time to work on the campaign for next week.”

“Awesome!” gawked Claudia. “You are working on my character right? So I can play with you guys?” She was looking between the two of them and her bright green had Rayla wishing for a quick but painless death. Who gave her the right to be this cute? And the character thing was news to her, stressful news. Now Claudia was going to play with D&D with them? _Great_ , more time to spend staring at the pretty human girl who was way out of her league and probably liked boys!

“She’s almost done.” Callum winked.

“Sweet! Oh, I told Soren about it and he said he wants to play.”

Callum’s eyebrows flew up. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah,” she nodded emphatically, “I mean I told him you were making me a character and then he called it “a super nerdy dweeb thing-”’ Callum’s face fell but Rayla remained unsurprised, “and made me explain it like three times and _then,_ get this, later he came into my room and said he didn’t like being left out, typical Soren, you know, and wants to play! So I said you’ll make him a character.”

“Yay, more work!” Was there ever a moment he could keep himself from being sarcastic, Rayla wondered. “Okay, I’ll start thinking of ideas. You guys have fun doing girl stuff, or whatever.”

Claudia was already whisking Rayla before she could flip Callum off, right up the stone steps of the pavillion. Rayla caught wind of lavender, it was her lotion, or maybe her perfume. Either way, the scent of lavender never failed to make Rayla nervous, happy, and miserable all at once. “Thanks Callum! C’mon, Rayla!”

_Oh, Stars…_

-

After a lengthy sprint through Callum’s mansion (Moon above this place was gigantic! Rayla always thought calling it a mansion was an understatement; one time Callum called it a house and she lost _it_ and almost strangled him. Ezran ended up recording the whole argument on his phone) and Rayla was suddenly grateful for her long legs as she tried to keep up with an excited Claudia, who pretty much just slid on the kitchen tile and the hardwood floor of the massive living room in her black heeled ankle boots she was going so fast, the two tumbled out of the also huge and intricate front doors. Rayla could see Claudia’s car in the long winding driveway that led up to the place, a solid black Corvette, sparkling in the sunlight.

_Filthy rich and human? Oh, Rayla._ She could practically hear Runaan clicking his tongue in the back of her head.                                                            

Claudia was pulling out her keys, flipping her hair (do _not_ smell her hair Rayla!) when Rayla found her voice once again. “So,” she coughed, reluctantly dropping the other girl’s hand to walk around to the passenger side, “where are we going exactly?”

“I was thinking the mall? You know, since there’s _so_ many stores there, we’re bound to find something. And we are on a tight schedule.” Claudia winked, throwing open her car door. Rayla swallowed.

The car’s engine roared to life around them as Claudia turned the ignition. For a Corvette, granted this was the nicest car she’d ever been in her life, the interior was surprisingly soft. The dash lit up a soft purple, a small touchscreen with the words “Welcome Claudia” in the middle. Of course, it smelled like lavender, which was relaxing and stressful at the same time. A single, lilac glass butterfly dangled from her mirror on a black ribbon. “Mmm, it’s such a nice day, we can put the roof down.” And then with a single click of one of the many on the dashboard, the roof began to retreat backwards.

_Oooooof course._

“Do you want to DJ?” Claudia was holding her phone towards Rayla. Hands shaking, Rayla took Claudia’s phone.

“No aux cord?” she asked, thinking back to the way she and Callum drove Ezran and themselves to school. Rayla’s car had been Runaan’s car, the same car he’d taught her to drive in, and only had a cassette tape player. But Harrow, Callum, and Gren (he and Amaya had been in town at the time) came together to figure out a way for the kids to hook up their cellphones to the stereo in Rayla’s old Toyota Tercell when she drove them all around, since Callum still only had his permit and Rayla refused to let Harrow buy her a nicer car. School for Ezran started earlier than school for them, but it didn’t matter because Rayla was always in tutoring or being lectured by Lujanne and Callum wanted unlimited and undisturbed access to art room and all its glorious supplies. Not to mention they’d recently started picking up Ellis as she was on the way, and every once in a while they’d convince Rayla to stop at Starbucks, as long as Callum paid and everyone under thirteen got something decaf. “You can have regular coffee when you’re in high school and dying like real adults.” Callum told them everytime they complained while Rayla cackled. They took turns playing different things with their new aux cord; Callum liked to play soft acoustic guitar tracks, Rayla just wanted to listen to John Mulaney stand up, and Ellis and Ezran usually took turns playing whatever really loud NatGeo video about animals they found on educational Youtube.   

“Oh, no. My phone just syncs up through the uh, um, bluetooth, I think it’s called.” Rayla couldn’t help but smile just a wee bit as Claudia hunted for the word. Her confusion _was_ a little cute. It almost, _almost_ , calmed her nerves.

Letting out a defeated sigh, Rayla handed Claudia back her phone. “I don’t really,” she held each of the words out, “listen to a lot of music, not well, anything mainstream. Or Katolian.” Was she biting her lip? _What_ was happening to her?

“Oh!” Claudia’s perfect eyebrows flew up, but there wasn’t any judgement on her face. “I guess I have a lot to teach you.” She then winked before pulling up some music app of her phone. “Though it’s good to know Callum’s terrible taste in music hasn’t rubbed off on you.”

Rayla full on snorted. “Callum actually said _you_ have terrible taste in music.” In the midst of her embarrassment from fucking _snorting_ in front of the girl she liked, she remembered the conversation with Callum as clear as day; Rayla had some advisor meeting with Lujanne and the rest of elves from the Katolian Study Abroad program and as a result hadn’t been able to drive Callum home, so Callum asked Claudia, and apparently the ride was miserable because she played Ariana Grande on full blast the whole way home. When Rayla and Ezran inquired what was so bad about that particular artist, Callum just stuck his tongue out in disgust. “Her taste in music is _terrible,_ and I can say that because we’ve known each other so long so don’t even go there!” Not less than three hours later Ezran and Callum had one of their sibling squabbles, Callum resorted to saying something _really_ mean (he was lucky Rayla wasn’t present for the fight cause she probably would’ve beat him with the precious sketchbook of his). The next thing Rayla knew, pop music she’d never heard was blaring through the mansion’s speakers. It was kind of catchy, for music made by humans. Then she found Callum knocking on Ezran’s door, his head hanging.

“I said I was sorry, Ez! Will you _please_ turn off the Ariana Grande?” he was practically _begging._

“Only if you do the crazy jerkface dance!” Ezran yelled back from the other side of the door.

Callum sighed. “Fine.”

“ _To_ Ariana Grande!”

So that’s how Callum doing the crazy jerkface dance to _God Is A Woman_ ended up on Rayla’s snapchat story.

_“thanks for driving callum home. and for the new way to annoy him.”_ she later got her bravery up to text Claudia. It was one of like five times _she_ texted first.

_“of course!”_ and then like ten emojis. _“cute video btw”_ Rayla proceeded to spend the next hour or so trying to not freak over the fact that Claudia had opened her Snapchat story.

“Well, what does Callum know?” Claudia rolled her eyes, a smile on her face.

“Not as much he thinks.” Rayla deadpanned.

This time _Claudia_ snorted, before bursting out into loud laughter. Sitting there, listening to her laugh so hard she was clutching her stomach, Rayla fell a little bit in love. Her laugh was a freaking drug, and making her laugh _may_ have just cured all her self esteem issues. “Oh my God,” Claudia wiped the tears from her eyes. “That’s so true.”

And there was this moment, Rayla swore, that something was different. Claudia was giving her this soft smile, her emerald green eyes pulling her in, and then-

Music began blasting through the car’s state of the art speakers, shocking Rayla so greatly that she flung herself back against the seat out of pure instinct. _Well there goes the “moment”_ Rayla’s bitterness leaked into her thoughts _idiot, there probably never was one._ But at least in embarrassing herself she made Claudia laugh again. _That_ she could get used.

“Let’s go!”

_“All the girls on the block knocking at my door,”_ the lyrics blasted as Claudia whipped on a pair of purple tinted sunglasses, changed gears, and began backing out Harrow’s infinite driveway, “ _wanna know what it is that makes the boys want more...”_

_

Rayla know knew that there something Claudia couldn’t do.

It turned out that the hot rich human prodigy Rayla let herself fall for, could _not_ drive.

For one, Claudia was probably speeding. On the freaking highway. She made lane changes _without_ looking, and so here they were, doing like fifteen over the posted speed limit, weaving in and out of cars without a second thought. _Before_ they got on the high way, she’d cut about five people off and people were laying on their horns like there was no tomorrow. And Claudia? Claudia had one hand one the wheel and was singing at the top of her lungs.

As adorable as Claudia was at the current moment, Rayla was _convinced_ she would be the death of her, especially driving like a maniac. She knew humans were naturally bad drivers, but this was just full on terrifying. Like _‘why did I ever leave Xadia?”_ level of terrifying. She managed to let go of her ironclad grip on the seat to send Callum a panicked text.

_Rayla’s cell, 2:03 pm_

“IM GOIN G TO! FU CKNG DIE AND ITS YOUR FUCKINH FAULT AFJGH??EHGJ!!”

_callum (scarf dork), 2:04 pm_

    “Well hello to you to Ray”

_Rayla’s cell 2:04 pm_

    “SHE CANT DRI VE C ALLUM  ASDKGSDZKGKU”

Thinking about it, Rayla couldn’t believe that Callum let Claudia take him home and then complained about the _music._

_callum (scarf dork) 2:05 pm_

    “Yeah I knew that.”

_And_ didn’t he warn her?

_Rayla’s cell 2:05 pm_

    “SHE DO!ESNT USE HE R TURN SIGVNAL HLKCSSHGKJFHGKJEHG”

_callum (scarf dork) 2:05 pm_

    “No one uses their turn signal Ray”

She was going to kill him. First she was going to die in this _extremely_ nice and expensive car, and then was going to come back from the dead and then kill him.

_callum (scarf dork) 2:05 pm_

    “Hey should I put Mothman in the campaign?”

Claudia rounded a sharp corner, her melodic laughter ringing over the roaring engine, and it was all Rayla could do but grip the seat and try not to scream.

The universe hated her. That’s the _only_ reason she could think for why this happening to her. Dying at the hands of her beautiful crush was so poetic, it was almost _stupidly_ poetic.

Her phone buzzed again.

_callum (scarf dork) 2:07 pm Multimedia Message_

    “Look I found another moth meme.”

_callum (scarf dork) 2:07 pm_

    “Actually I lied, my dad sent it to me. that’s how we’re relating to each other now. Moth memes.”

And then a sigh emoji.

She didn’t bother with a reply.

By the time Claudia haphazardly swung the car into a parking spot near the shopping mall (in hindsight it had only been about twenty minutes, but it had been to have been the scariest twenty minutes of Rayla’s life) Rayla was out of breath and her hair was sticking out everywhere, wondering if she would destroy her chances with Claudia if she pointed out the careless driving thing. _Oh right,_ the sarcastic voice in her head rang out, _you didn’t have a chance in the first place._

“We’re here!” Claudia sang out. Rayla could only nod.

“Do you shop a lot?” asked Claudia, a certain unique eagerness in her pretty voice, as they walked through the crowded halls of the mall. Rayla jumped at the sound of her speaking. She had been too busy glaring at the people who were looking her like _that_ to pay attention. _Dumb humans._  Never mind she was standing next to the one she had a head over heels crush on.

_At least she can stand to be seen with you. Wonder how long till you mess that up._

Rayla glanced down at her almost _too_ casual outfit. Guess that didn’t give her inexperience away like she thought it did. “Ummm, not really no. I guess you do.”  

Claudia’s response came close to giving Rayla freaking whiplash. “Uh, no not much. I never have time. You know, to like go out. I just do it online. And Dad _hates_ the mall, he never took us when we were kids. I’ve only been here, like four times?”

“Really?” This caught her attention. The other girl never really talked about her dad, or not that Rayla ever had heard. Partly because, when they were together, they were all mostly studying or Claudia was reading. There was minimal conversation given how busy they all were. All Rayla really knew is that Lord Viren had high expectations of his high exceeding children, and that he got on Harrow’s nerves sometimes but they worked well enough together, and that he made Callum kind of nervous. That, and he did _not_ like Elves.

It was hard to not hyperfixate on that last one.

“Oh, yeah. Soren and I would, like, beg but he never took us places like this.” Claudia shrugged. _Why_ was she smiling? This was sad, if Rayla had any say. Her parents used to take her to playgrounds and the mall all the time to let her play with the other kids, and later Runaan and Tinker would take her to the movies, even if Runaan grumbled the entire and only admitted _later_ he had fun. “Ooooh, one time for my thirteenth birthday, Soren snuck me out and we saw a movie here! At the _dollar theatre_ , how crazy is that?” _For someone with gobs of money, yeah, I guess._ She had an even bigger smile on her face as she recalled the memory that sent Rayla’s stomach into a flurry of butterflies. “That place is _so_ dirty! It was wild! I loved it!”

“You…. liked the dollar theatre,” Rayla was trying- and mostly failing- not to laugh, “...at the mall?”

She nodded, that same beautiful smile still on her face. But then it fell. “Dad was _so_ mad though. I got off easy, but Soren got lectured for like four hours. Other than that, it was worth it.”

Rayla wasn’t sure how to respond. She wasn’t even sure where to start. It didn’t matter though, because Claudia wasn’t actually finished. “And now, every once in a while I’ll take Ezran there! Usually when Callum just needs a break from being with him. Oh, and it’s _always_ fun trying to sneak Bait in pass the mall security guard. But I’ve never actually been shopping here! This should be fun!”

_She takes Ezran out to the crappy movie theatre- that she’s oddly enamoured with for some wild reason- to help Callum out and even takes grumpy Bait?_  But Rayla didn’t have time to start mentally unpacking the strange charitableness of that, because of what happened next. “Rayla?” _Fuck!_

Rayla turned with her head hanging at the sound of the familiar voice. “Hey, Stephen…” Moon Above, of all the people she had to run into it had to be her _boss._ He was just standing by a fucking potted plant three feet in front of them, sipping on some soft drink, wearing the whole blue apron and visor ensemble with “ _The Most Famous Pretzels in Katolis!_ ” written in big, white, annoying letters.

“What are you doing here?” he took a long, almost infinite, sip of his drink. Rayla contemplated strangling him. _Maybe Claudia would find that hot?_ “Isn’t today your day off?”

“It’s a…” Rayla dared a glance at Claudia, who was looking between the two of them with those wide green eyes before flashing Rayla a confident smile, “personal trip?”

“Oh.” Stephen just shrugged. “Hey, can you cover for Davis tomorrow? He said he’s sick.”

Rayla rolled her eyes. “I told you Stephen, I don’t, as in _do not_ work on Sundays. That was our agreement, remember? Besides, Davis only calls in sick so he can go smoke weed with the rest of his dumb hum-” _whoops, force of habit_ “idiot friends behind the Sears.” Rayla quickly corrected. Not working Sundays was an agreement both Rayla and Harrow made ( _Oh! Thaaaaat’s when I said human promises were like Moon Elf Bindings!)_ with Callum and Ezran, on Ezran’s insistence, so they could spend time as “a family.” Rayla didn’t completely melt when Ezran included her as part of their family or anything, what are you talking about?

“Pfft, Davis doesn’t smoke weed. He’s a _good_ employee.” scoffed Stephen.

“He’s hiding some behind the soda machine, ya nitwit.” Rayla cocked her head and put her hands on her hips. She was riding a close line of course, but she knew Stephen wouldn’t fire her because everyone else- including him- was incompetent. Her confidence was only heightened by Claudia snorting and starting to giggle.

“What? No he’s not! _You’re_ hiding weed, Rayla!” he accused, but before she could say anything to that pitiful retort, he was running off was those weird skinny human legs of his. Probably to go check for Davis’ stash behind the soda machine.

_Dumbass human._

Claudia coughed, wiping tears from her eyes. Had she really been laughing that hard? “Who was that?” she asked.

And there went Rayla’s brief moment of confidence.

“That was,” Rayla sighed, rubbing her arm, “Stephen is my boss.”

Her green eyes went wide. “You work here? At the pretzel stand?”

Rayla grimaced, preparing herself for the harsh judgement that was sure to follow. But it never came. “That is _so_ cool!”

“It’s cool that I work at the pretzel stand? At the mall?” her mouth flew open. She was _lost._ Human girls were a freaking unsolvable mystery. There was nothing cool or impressive about her stupid job where all the gloves had five fingers so she had _that_ to deal with and most of her coworkers were stoners. (It was so bad that one day she came home and Ezran asked “What’s that weird smell?” only for her to yell without thought “HERBS” really, really, loudly. “Pretzel herbs?” “Yeah… it’s a... thing.” Callum came close to dying of laughter.)

“Yeah!” Claudia said it as if was obvious. “I’d _kill_ to have a job, but Dad won’t let me. Oh well!”

Rayla’s eyes went wide. _The girl with everything would kill to have a crappy after school job that pays peanuts because her father is actively blocking any attempts for better wages?_

It was just another thing to unpack later, because the job thing reminded her of something pretty important: she had absolutely no money at the moment. Groaning, she smacked herself in the face.

“Oh my gosh, are you okay?”

“Claudia, I’m _so_ sorry I dragged you here today. But I just remembered I have no money.” she could kick herself for being so, so stupid. _You let a pretty girl- a pretty_ human _girl distract you and now you’ve wasted everyone’s time! Great job Rayla!_ Roughly 75% of her paycheck went into a savings account dedicated to a college fund and/or go find Runaan wherever the fuck he is fund, and the other 25% of her last paycheck had gone into paying for the Starbucks trip when Callum misplaced his wallet- _twice-_ and losing to Amaya _and_ Gren at Poker. (Stubbornness truly was her greatest weakness.)

“I was going to pay for you anyway.”

“ _WHAT_?” she yelled, then clapped her hands over her mouth immediately. Half the mall was looking at them thanks to her little outburst. Only Claudia didn’t seem to notice. She just shrugged and smiled.

“Yeah, as like a thank you. For letting me drag you here.”

“A thank you?” Rayla was lost again. Wasn’t Rayla the one that should be giving out thank yous?

“I mean, we are friends, right?” Claudia winked. _WE ARE?_ “And this is what friends do. It’s really no big deal.”

_MOON ABOVE HOLY FUCK. WE’RE FRIENDS?_ That was definitely more than Rayla deserved. _WHY IS SHE PAYING FOR ME? WHHHHYYYYY?_

Rayla was almost certain that she was having aneurysm. Or something along those lines. Because this was a _very_ big deal. This was the _biggest_ deal. How was she _ever_ going to repay her in a million freaking years?

She’d have to stress about it later because they had just walked passed a Charlotte Russe store and Claudia had lit up like a Winter Solstice Tree. “We’re going in here!” she shouted, and before Rayla knew what was happening, Claudia was pulling her hand in hand into a clothing store.

_

 “Oooh! You’re trying this one on too!” Claudia practically squealed, yanking another poor dress off the rack and throwing it onto the pile Rayla was currently dragging around. When they started only ten minutes ago, Claudia was just throwing the clothes over her shoulder like a crazy woman. In attempt to be chivalrous, Rayla offered to carry the clothes but her arms were beginning to regret offering.

Only now was it starting to click that she’d have to actually try _all_ the clothes on.

It was little obvious Claudia didn’t go into actual stores a lot, because even Rayla knew this was not how normal people shopped. When she was little, her mother would take her to clothing stores and they’d pick out _durable_ clothing. Rayla’s mother was calm the entire time, and so was Runaan, when he took her shopping when she was staying with him (he never picked the clothes; just told the attendants what they were looking for). They were in and then they were out. Elves weren’t much shoppers. But being in the human kingdoms had rubbed off on her a wee bit; now clothes shopping was more picking a few things out at thrift store and spending extra time browsing so Callum could fish Ezran out of whatever pile of old donated stuffed animals he was hiding from Bait in- and then browsing some more while the two brothers looked for wherever Bait was hiding. (She could probably cut the shopping trip time in half by helping look, but there was enough at that back at the mansion.)

Claudia tore through the store like a freaking tornado. It was kind of impressive, and her giddiness was definitely worth the glares the other shoppers and attendants were sending their way.

One more outfit tossed her way and Claudia decided she was done. “I think that’ll be enough.”

“Oh really?” Rayla raised an eyebrow. “You only took out half the store.”

Claudia covered her mouth as she giggled. “Whoops.” she surveyed the damage. “I guess I did get a little carried away.”

“You think?” snickered Rayla.

“Whatever,” Claudia swatted her hand at her, “this is just so much fun. Let’s go try this stuff on!”

_Do we have to?_ But Rayla kept that to herself. _She’s paying for it, do whatever she says,_ she reprimanded herself and followed Claudia to the dressing rooms. This was going to take a while. She was holding like twenty five separate pieces of clothing. And that didn’t include the lacy bralettes Claudia decided to add last minute when Rayla wasn’t looking. Smart. There probably would have been protesting.

“Okay,” Rayla dragged the word when Claudia opened the stall door for her, “here I go. I guess.”

“You’ll let me see everything right?” asked Claudia. Her hands were clasped together and that radiant smile was back on her face. How was Rayla supposed to say no?

“Sure, yeah.” Rayla took a deep breath. She couldn’t really a fathom a reason why Claudia wanted to see her in all these different outfits. Weren’t they basically all the same?

Once the door was closed and the pile tossed onto the bench (she knew convention stated she was supposed to hang them up but honestly who had the time?) Out of habit, Rayla pulled her phone at her pocket. There was a message from Callum.

_callum_ ( _scarf dork) 2:33 pm_

“So how’s it going? You dead yet?”

_Rayla’s cell 2:40 pm_

    “you wish”

_callum (scarf dork) 2:40 pm_

    “Ha. But seriously. are you at the mall?”

_Rayla’s cell 2:41 pm_

“yah trying on a million outfits”

    “she met my boss”

_callum (scarf dork) 2:41 pm_

“Stephen? Wait why?”

_Rayla’s cell 2:41 pm_

“we ran into him. ugghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh asdfghjkkl callum why did you make me do this?”

_callum (scarf dork) 2:41 pm_

“Whatever ray you’re having fun and you know it.”

_Rayla’s cell 2:42 pm_

    “she thinks it’s cool i work at the pretzel stand??????????????”

_callum (scarf dork) 2:42 pm_

“LMAO!”

    “yeah that sounds like Claudia. She’s weird like that. Don’t be surprised if she shows up there everyday now.”

_I guess there are worse customers to see everyday,_ Rayla thought as she tossed the cell phone onto the stall’s bench. She sighed, kicking off her scuffed dirty converse before turning to the long mirror.

Looking at herself in the mirror was just an open invitation for the angry mean voice in her head to come and kick her ass. Which is why she didn’t do it a lot. Elves didn’t really use mirrors, except in extreme, and rather odd, cases. Rayla couldn’t look back on her childhood and remember any. But they were _everywhere_ Katolis and the other human kingdoms. There were three in the bedroom Harrow gave to her. Quickly realizing that she hated what she looked like, a weird dissonance in her mind that came from being an elf surrounded by humans all the time, humans that stared unprompted and whispered under the stupid assumption she couldn’t hear them (just because her ears were pointed didn’t mean she didn’t have them), and realizing that she didn’t even look that great even for an Elf, Rayla hid two of the mirrors in the deepest part of the walk in closet, turning them around from good measure. One stayed. It was about the length of her door, so she kept it on the back.  A permanent reminder of her flaws. An unbiased and unchanging memory of her failures.

And now she was standing in front of a stupid mirror again. Rayla’s fingers touched her light silver hair; it was frizzy from the Katolian humidity she wasn’t quite used to. Lately it never did what she wanted, and she kept the front part up in a ponytail between her horns, letting the rest down, because it didn’t look good down or up. Ezran liked to call it her “water spout” because he thought it looked like a fountain. He was always good at cheering her up and always the most successful at helping her forget about what she looked liked. It meant the world that he just didn’t care, about her appearance or about her being an Elf. With a sigh, Rayla took the scrunchie out of her “water spout”and it fell limply to her shoulders. She combed it with her fingers, wondering when she got so pale, the distinct violet markings below her eyes almost grey in the harsh fluorescent light. It looked to her like she’d lost some weight, a thought that scared her; it was easy to keep pushing yourself hard when you never had to see and face the toll it took on you. _I need to stop skipping meals to study._ No wonder Callum was always sticking granola bars in her backpack. _Maybe you should actually eat them, Rayla._

A rational part of her understood that the stress of being seperated from Runaan and then having to adapt to a whole new life in a whole new country with a completely different culture would manifest in physical way, so why when she looked at her reflection did she feel like such a failure?

_A failure who has to try on all these clothes._ Rayla turned to look at the pile in defeat, trying to remind herself that Claudia’s intentions were not have her stare at herself in the mirror with pathetic pity, even if that was the result. She shed her tank top and was peeling off her leggings when she heard the other girl ask, “Are you okay in there?”

“Oh!” Rayla bit her lip, somewhat surprised at the worry in her voice, “sorry this is taking so long, just trying to decide what to pick first!” she chuckled nervously, hoping that covered her lie.

“Oooh, what about that purple mini skirt?” _Oh Stars, a mini skirt._

That began the long crusade of Rayla wrangling herself into a series of fancy clothes. Her rigid opinions of her appearance didn’t help the success of the outfits, and she struck most of them down before even coming out.

“At least come out here and let _me_ see!” Claudia would practically beg upon hearing Rayla’s deadpan “Not a chance.”

And so Rayla would stumble out of the dressing room, her shoulders slumped, and ready to point out what didn’t work, every single time. Only the human girl never saw it that way. “That looks cute!” or “I knew you’d look adorable in a dress” or “teal is really a good color on you!” But even though she liked the outfits, she wasn’t ever satisfied and would shoo Rayla back into the dressing room. “Look for something teal, I know there was like a romper in there or something.”

That’s what she was currently, digging through the now very messy pile ( _why didn’t I sort these????)_ for the romper Claudia mentioned. _I guess we’re going with this now._ Rayla did have to admit, Claudia knew what she was doing. It was hard to tell she was making any decisions based on Rayla’s personal style when she was tearing through the store like Ezran and Bait with a fresh baked batch of jelly tarts, but they were cute. Not on her though, not much was- but she did like them. _They’d definitely be beautiful on her, but what isn’t? Though I’ve never seen her wear blue before, maybe ever. Is that a me thing?_ Claudia could see things Rayla could not; she never would’ve thought teal was a good color on her. But that was coming from the girl who’d wear her flannel pajamas to any formal event, or anything in general, if she could get away with it.

_Has never been to a real store before but takes me to one even though her father obviously disapproves. Storms the place in a freaking flurry and grabs outfits seemingly without thinking, but they fit my style? Knows I wear blue a lot but never looks at anything other then what she’s obsessively reading._ This girl was a walking contradiction, and Rayla could not for the life of her, figure her out. But being with Claudia made her curious, and it made Rayla brave.   _May as well start somewhere._

“Can I ask you something?” Rayla called out as she tried to shimmy out of a skin tight cerulean cocktail dress, the last rejected outfit.

“Sure!” _Oh Sun Above I’m about to ruin her bad mood, aren’t I? Classic Rayla._

“If you want to have a job,” Rayla paused, “why doesn’t your dad let you?”

There was no response, not at first. Just a prolonged silence that was almost painful, in which Rayla contemplated just how bad death would really be right this second. How could she be so _stupid_? But then, thank the Stars, Claudia did talk. “He wants… he wants me to focus on more important things.”

“Like school?” asked Rayla. She’d found the romper.

“School, and dance, extracurriculars, piano, my college applications. Stuff like that.” The tone of her voice had lost that song like quality Rayla found so enchanting. Now it was normal. Now it was flat. And what was with the college applications, she wondered as she struggled to orient the new piece of clothing with her stupidly lanky legs, they were _juniors._ Although she was trying to save for it, and Harrow would mention how fantastic Katolis University was every once in a while, college was the last thing on her frazzled mind. Worrying about getting through the day and making sure Ezran and Ellis didn’t leave any one of their six ovens on and Callum didn’t walk off one of the upper floor balconies one day playing Pokemon Go took up most of her energy.

But it made sense. Claudia was at the top of their graduating class. Even Rayla wasn’t thinking about her future past the next two weeks much, Claudia had had hers planned out probably from minute one. Rayla felt a quiet sense of dread when she wondered just _who_ had planned out the other girl’s future.

“So…” Rayla clicked her tongue. “Is it okay that you came with me today?” She couldn’t imagine Claudia’s elf-and-mall-hating father approving of this little outing.  “If there was something you needed to be working on-”

“Oh I finished everything last night. It’s no big deal. It was only like two essays,” _Only two???_ “and all that biology work. And the stuff for Lawson’s class, then like maybe two or three hours of piano? I usually don’t keep track anymore since Dad stopped making me write it down. But Soren’s staying the weekend and he’s got some stuff planned so I wanted to get everything done so we could hang out. That and Dad was supposed to come home early…” her voice trailed off.

“And he didn’t?” Rayla finished. There was only one way for that story to end. She finally- after a lot of standing there listening to Claudia- had the romper on and had returned to staring at herself in the mirror. _It doesn’t look… bad._ It worked better than everything else they’d tried. The dark teal color complimented her violet markings and silver hair, spaghetti straps hanging loosely off her shoulders. There were even pockets. Real pockets not weird shallow ones that were completely useless.

“He never does.” The hurt and disappointment in her voice was like a punch in the stomach. This _whole_ story was like a punch in the stomach. It turned out, Rayla didn’t know the perfect prodigy as well as she thought she did. “Even when he promises, just always says, maybe next time.” _Holy Fuck. I’m gonna go beat Lord Viren up right now,_ she decided, thinking back to how yesterday afternoon, Harrow texted Callum and Ezran from work that he would have to stay late. This was the norm, King Harrow working late nights, and the brothers had long been used to having the giant mansion to themselves once the wait staff went home for the night with just her and like fourteen different plasma screen TVs to entertain them, but then last night Harrow surprised them all by coming home at 6:30 and not the usual 12:30, with a towering four boxes of pizza. The boys were ecstatic. Even though Callum tried to downplay his reaction, Rayla knew how much it meant to him that his Step-Dad weaseled his way out another “useless meeting” -Harrow’s words, not Rayla’s- to eat greasy cheese pizza with his sons and the weird Moon Elf they’d adopted in the West media room while watching _Wreck It Ralph._

“Actually it’s kind of funny,” _What,_ Rayla had to refrain from saying, _that that dumbass Viren can’t even give his perfect flawless child the time of day? Cause I’m not laughing._ “the last time we talked was when Mr. Reynolds accidently messed up my grade up in the system and Dad checks like every six hours.”

Rayla’s wide lilac eyes stared back at her in the mirror in complete shock. Every new thing Claudia said was just another new skeleton in the closet chucked Rayla’s way and she didn’t have the emotional reflexes to catch them in time. _THIS IS SO MESSED UP THIS IS SO MESSED HOLY SKY THIS IS MESSED UP,_ Rayla kept thinking. He _routinely_ checked her grades like some pyscho? Not even Runaan, with his the whole “my warriors will get _good_ grades” even did more than glance at her paper report card. Harrow _never_ checked. Yeah, he asked her how classes were going and then _she_ would bring up her grades. Rayla didn’t even know how invested he was in Callum and Ezran’s grades more than displaying their quarterly report cards in the drawing room. He sure as _Stars_ never checked the online system for any of them, even if Rayla and Callum were always refreshing the damn page like their lives depended on it.

In the back of her head, she wondered if Callum knew about any of this. She wondered why it had taken _her_ so long to notice that something was off.

“What was the grade? The wrong one Reynolds entered?” Rayla drew each word out because she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear Claudia’s response.

“A 91.” her answer was so casual that Rayla almost broke the mirror in a fit of surprise.

“He was upset about a 91?” But that was _still_ an A! It was still a shit ton better than what Rayla had gotten which was ten and a half points behind Claudia’s _wrong_ grade.

Claudia just kept talking about Viren as if this was all normal, and _that_ , Rayla realized, was what was bothering her. She had no clue how messed up this was. Claudia was clueless about a lot of things despite being brilliant and talented, but this was a lot different than not being able to figure how an umbrella opened for fifteen minutes straight. “Oh yeah, he was furious. Went on that whole “you can do better this, I’m _so_ disappointed, I expected more, you know you shouldn’t act like your insolent useless brother” rant.” she sighed. “But just another day, you know?”

_No,_ Rayla shook her head, a hand on the mirror, _I don’t._ Even if she had grown up with other Elves, the short time she’d been with humans was enough to show her they didn’t all act like monsters. It was enough time to know that when a human child came home with a 91 on a really hard test, that was good enough for most human parents.

“Well you’re dad sounds like a real blast.” It came out of her mouth before she could think, which in hindsight, she probably should have. _You never think._ Sympathetic as she was to Claudia’s plight, it wasn’t like this was her own personal life story and she wasn’t exactly emotionally prepared for the turn this conversation was going to take, so her only natural reaction was sarcasm. _You’re such an iiiidddioot._

“He’s _not_ that bad most of the time.” There was an edge in her words that almost stung. It was not like Rayla cursed the name of her father and then spit on him, geeze. Why on Earth was she defending him? “Just when stuff like this happens! I just don’t want to disappoint him, you know?”

“Yeah, that I do know.” Rayla swallowed. With her eyes closed, she could still remember the way the other elves looked at her, just a kid, with so much hatred in their eyes after her parents’ fall from grace. Could still hear the way they hissed _“coward!”_ And the look in Runaan’s eyes, after he taken her in and taken a chance on her, of utter disappointment the last time they’d seen each other, burned in her brain. If there was one reason she could not fail now in this foreign land, her parents sins aside, it would be for him.

Claudia’s voice was soft when she asked from the other side, “What was it like? With the Elves in Xadia?”

“Huh?”

“Callum mentioned something, about why you came-” _Fucking Stars, Callum I’m going to kill YOU why the fuck are you talking about me to Claudia you’re like the last person I’d want doing that you’ve seen me do so much stupid stuff and I just KNOW you’re trying to  get leverage-_ _“_ you know what never mind, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to-”

“No, it’s okay.” Rayla stopped her panicked back tracking. When she looked under the door, she could see Claudia pacing back and forth with impressive speed. She’d never seen the other girl act like this; effortless, spacey, adorable as all get outs, but nervous? Never. Rayla kind of wanted just keep hanging her head upside down and watch her be cute from behind the door but she reminded herself how vulnerable Claudia had been with her and that was just another reason she was indebted to the human girl. Maybe it was time for her to be vulnerable too.

Slumping against the mirror, Rayla began rubbing her arm, grateful for the protection and barrier the door provided. At least she didn’t have to watch Claudia watch her tell this kind of pathetic- well _really_ pathetic- story. “My parents,” she sighed, “they did something. Something pretty awful and cowardly, back when was I home- when I was in Xadia.”

“Oh.” Claudia’s pacing came to an abrupt stop. Rayla waited a few seconds for her to ask _what_ exactly they did, but the question never came. It occurred to her that she was waiting for Rayla to keep talking, and that Claudia was _just_ listening. _This is weird…_

“Life got pretty terrible for our family pretty quickly, and I blamed them. I ran away.”

“How old were you?” Claudia’s voice was closer than it had been before.

Rayla started grinding her teeth, trying to think. “Eh, maybe like eight? It’s all kind of a blur.” You know, like most childhoods.

“Wow!” she said with a certain reverence. “You must have been really brave to have left like that, since things sucked so bad.”

“Ha! I wish! I’m still as much of a coward as they were.” chuckled Rayla, trying to shake the awkwardness of this whole situation away. “After that, I found someone to take me in… when no one else would. Another elf. Anyways, we lived together for a couple of years and he trained me with a couple of other Moon Elves-”

“That’s cool.”

“Eh, I mean it was like the one thing I was sort of good at that, but of course I had to go mess that up. I’m actually really good at that.” she laughed before reprimanding herself. _No amount of laughter is going to make this better stop laughing like a damn weirdo._ Now she understood why Claudia kept laughing about the shitty things her dad did.

“Can I ask what happened?”

Why did she have to be so damn considerate? Not “What happened” but “ _can I ask.”_ She had given her an out.

Rayla let out a long sigh. This was probably the part of the story she dreaded telling the most. “And then, the Moon Elf who took me in, we were in Katolis-” Rayla continued, just casually leaving out what a bunch of Moon Elves were doing in a human kingdom, “-and we had a fight. A really big one. I actually haven’t seen him since that night.” her last words were said in a whisper.

It was then Rayla noticed that at some point she had slid down length of the mirror and was now on the floor. Not only that, but when she glanced under the door, she could see Claudia’s sitting too, her toned legs tucked under her skirt. She was _right_ by the stall. If the door wasn’t there, they would have been face to face.

“Don’t you want to fix things? I bet you could, you’re smart enough too.” Claudia told her.

“Well for one thing, I don’t know where he is. Every time I look for him, it’s like” Rayla made a farting noise with her mouth and Claudia giggled. _Because he just… disappeared._ “Plus he probably hates me. I mean he made it pretty clear how badly I failed him during that fight.” She shuddered at the memory.

“I doubt he hates you.” the jubilant quality that was _so_ Claudia had returned to her voice. “I don’t think anyone could ever hate you.”

_Why is she being so nice to me?_ Rayla let her head fall against the mirror. _I guess she’s this way with all her beautiful and rich friends. Lucky them.  Lending an ear, being kind and patient, buying stuff for them just because she could. You’re not anything special, Rayla._

Hanging her head, Rayla replied, “You’d be surprised. Honestly I’m just waiting for the day I mess things up so bad with Callum and Ez that they kick me out. It’s why I work so hard, too hard. They’ve done so much for me and I owe them so much.”

“I think you’re being too hard on yourself.” Claudia poked her arm from under the stall and Rayla started laughing. There was so much irony in Claudia telling her that she was too hard on herself when just yesterday she played piano for a million hours and wrote essays after a full day of AP classes. She wondered if Claudia even noticed.

“Maybe we’re _both_ being too hard on ourselves.” said Rayla. She was smiling like an idiot, looking up at the fluorescent lights. She’d never dreamed of being here with her like this. It was too painful to let herself even daydream.  This- sitting on the rough carpet of a clothing store in a mall across from her- was almost too good to be true.

_Guess I owe Callum a huge thank you._

Giggling, Claudia stood up. “Maybe, Rayla. So… are we gonna stay here and tell each other our saddest stories or are you finally going to come out?”

“Oh!” Rayla jumped up, and without a second thought swung the door open as fast as she could- straight into where Claudia was standing.

“Ow!”

_Rayla, you idiot!_ She had smacked Claudia right in her face, and the girl was wobbling back and forth like she was seeing stars. “Sun Above, I am _so_ sorry, I didn’t mean I mean I didn’t-”

“You’re really strong…” Claudia mumbled, before tipping forwards and straight into Rayla’s arms. _Holy crap, how hard did I hit her?_ was her first thought and then her next thought when the familiar scent of lavender hit her was _DID SHE JUST FALL INTO ME?_

“Are you okay?” Rayla was basically shouting at this point, almost shaking her. Even though Claudia seemed to be pushing herself up and coming through the worst of it, Rayla was flooded with guilt. _She’s going to hate you now. Nice job on that one._ “I’m so sorry, Claudia-”

“It’s fine, Rayla, it was an accident.” Claudia shrugged off Rayla’s apologies as if stuff like this happened all the time ( _Well she is always running into things- NOT the point, Rayla!)_ , her hand coming to the red mark on her forehead. Then her eyes narrowed in Rayla’s direction. _Uh oh._ “Hey! Look at you!”

“What?” They were still holding each other up.

Claudia’s emerald eyes had lit up again “This is it! This is what you’re wearing tonight! Ah! I knew this was a good fit!” She’d become so excited that she started jumping up and down despite being whacked with a heavy door only thirty seconds ago, and Rayla found herself jumping too in the middle of the store (she was pretty sure people were staring, but she honestly didn’t give a single fuck) like they were just little kids. Like Ezran and Ellis on the trampoline in Ellis’ backyard, the same one Callum was always dragging Ezran off of.

Huh. When was the last time she was so stupidly happy she jumped up and down?

"Really? You think it looks good?” Rayla couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice if she tried even if she did sound like a giant dork.

“You look _amazing_!” Claudia squealed. “We did it!”

“We did it!” Rayla shouted, her enthusiasm contagious, but then the moment was cut short when out of the corner of her eye she noticed the price tag flailing around as they jumped. _That_ was still bothering her. “Claudia, it’s 35 dollars, if you don’t want to buy it-”

Her face fell, no longer amused. “You stopped our jumping for that?”

“Well, yeah-”

Reaching in the back pocket of her purple skirt, Claudia waved her off and pulled out her wallet. Rayla could see an arrangement of several credit cards. “Rayla, I told you- it’s not a big deal.” She reached for Rayla’s arm once more. “Please just let me do this for you.”

_I don’t deserve it. I really, really don’t deserve- UGHHHHHH why does she have to look at me with those big Bait eyes?_ Granted, Claudia was _much_ prettier than the glow toad, but that went without saying. _No offense, Bait._

“Okay.” Rayla sighed, but she did smile. If she had to spend the next few weeks thinking of a way to repay someone, at least that person would be Claudia.

“Yay! Alright, go change and we can go pay.” the other girl practically pushed her back into the dressing room where the clothes lay in a chaotic array that Rayla would have to clean up, but at least she wouldn’t be trying anymore on.

That stupid, enormous smile back on her face, Rayla made sure to be extra careful with the door this time.

_

  _Rayla’s cell to callum (scarf dork) 4:09 pm._

“we’re on our way back”

_callum (scarf dork) 4:11 pm_

“Cool. I’ll be watching the news to see if you’ve instigated a car crash to get out of tonight. You know, since claud’s driving is so bad.”

_Rayla’s cell 4:11 pm_

“ha. ha.”

    “who tf says instigated?”

_callum (scarf dork) 4:12 pm_

    “it’s dictionary.com’s word of the day. I get their emails.”

_Rayla’s cell 4:14 pm_

“youre a nerd”

_callum (scarf dork) 4:15 pm_

“AM NOT. now excuse me I have to go back to binging Merlin and planning our next d&d campaign.”

Rayla snorted as she read Callum’s last message.

The drive back wasn’t necessarily any smoother than the drive there, but at least Rayla knew what she was in for this time (she was still planning on dragging Callum over the coals for the lack of warning but that went without saying) and Claudia’s terrible senseless driving didn’t have her clutching the seat the entire ride home. This time she just tried to take deep breaths whenever the other girl made a lane change or cut somebody off and hoped to the Stars that the passenger air bag was on.

_“_ So tell me why my gods look like you...” Claudia was softly singing along to the lyrics of the song she’d chosen from her phone -while still driving, nonetheless- as they pulled up to the gates of her neighborhood (super hella rich humans liked gates, Rayla quickly learned when she first came to Katolis). “and tell me why it’s wrong...” Rayla, being Rayla, didn’t recognize the song but what just content to listen to Claudia sing along. It slow and soothing and almost as hypnotizingly beautiful as she was.

Try as she might to be upbeat in Claudia’s presence, there was a major part of Rayla that was disappointed the trip was coming to an end. She knew it couldn’t last, but still. Given how busy they both were, Claudia specifically, something like this afternoon would be almost impossible to recreate. Rayla kept telling herself that it only really happened because Claudia’s brother told her to clear her weekend. Being with her, just the two of them, had been better than she ever imagined. Everything about Claudia was intoxicating beyond her wildest dreams, and if Rayla thought she was in deep before, it was nothing compared to how far she had fallen now. Because Claudia’s kindness and intelligence spoke to something beyond just her talent and her beauty.

But with all the pressure placed on the perfect prodigy’s shoulders (by her dick father- yeah there- Rayla said it), her weird Moon Elf friend was probably- no _definitely_ \- the last thing on Claudia’s mind.

The haunting song came to an end as Harrow’s mansion came into view. Rayla let out a long sigh. _All good things come to an end, hasn’t that been your whole life? Thought you would be used to it by now._ “Thank you,” she said, after finding her voice, “for buying the romper.”

“You know, you only said thank a million times back in the mall, you don’t have to keep saying thank you.” Claudia winked, and in the second she took her eyes off the road, they came within like four centimeters of hitting a mailbox until she swerved back onto the road.

_Oh Stars. Also that’s what you think. I’m probably going to keep saying thank you until the day I die._

“It’s just-” Rayla was wracking her brain for some way to say goodbye because they were only a couple of seconds from Harrow’s long ass driveway, but then Claudia continued driving past the familiar gates. “Wait, you missed it…” Rayla knew she was pointing like the biggest idiot on Earth and Ocean combined with her mouth hanging slightly open, but she just wasn’t quite sure what to think.

“You thought you were getting out of it, didn’t you?” Claudia intoned with a charming smile. _Yeah that’s_ definitely _what I want._ “I was just going to take you to my place, if that’s okay?” _A chance to prolong any time spent with you? I think I’d sell my soul- KEEP IT TOGETHER RAYLA._ None of that was said, of course. In continuance with the idiot theme Rayla had now adopted, she could only stare at her with her wide Bait like eyes. “I mean, we still haven’t gotten to the _makeover_ part of the makeover.”

“You’re gonna do my makeup?”

Claudia nodded. “And nails, and hair. _If_ that’s okay.”

“Umm, yeah. What’s the harm in letting you try?” _And fix this mess_ , but Rayla didn’t add that part in attempt to reign in the self deprecation.

“That’s the spirit!” cheered Claudia, turning down a street that Rayla didn’t recognize. All her time in the wealthiest, most extravagant (and that was putting it lightly) neighborhood in the whole freaking kingdom was spent in Harrow’s castle sized mansion, and there was enough places to explore just there alone, so she’d never ventured anywhere else. She’d seen- and was crashing in- one rich government official’s, the king to be exact, house, what was the point and going out to see other ones if she’d basically seen them all?

There was no visible property on the long winding street, shadowed by a thick forest that blocked out most of the sun- and that wasn’t creepy _at all-_ except for an iron gated (Iron? Not one of the other “houses” had iron gates, and Harrow’s paled in comparison to the intricate detail of the gate before them) mansion Claudia had pulled up to. Unlike the gates of Callum and Ez’s “castle”, Claudia’s gates were not manned; she merely entered a code into a small electronic box and as a result, the iron gates began to part with an ominous creak. Claudia hummed as she drove up another long driveway (another thing mega rich humans liked for their stupidly huge houses) before parking in a rather crooked fashion next to a bright white Mustang.

“Looks like Soren’s home!” Claudia flashed her a smile as she turned off the ignition and stepped out of the car. Only then, as she was taking hers off, did Rayla notice that Claudia hadn’t been wearing her seatbelt. _Oceans, she’s a mess an adorable mess, but still a mess- but I guess I’m not one to talk._ Rayla followed her, shopping bag holding her old outfit in hand, up a set of desert stone steps to intricate set of heavy iron doors, designs etched the same as the ominous gates. Then she waited for a few minutes as Claudia attempted to to unlock the door with her keys, mumbling “this usually works” to herself, when Rayla remembered Soren’s Mustang in the driveway.

“Um, Claudia?” she nudged the other girl, who was busy twisting her wrist in an ungodly way trying to get the door to budge, “maybe it’s unlocked?”

“Oh!” her eyes went wide and she wrestled her keys out before pressing down on the handle. The door swung open into the grand entrance with ease. “Thanks.” again she winked before announcing, “Welcome!” she gestured into her home, letting Rayla enter first.

It was nowhere near the grandeur of Harrow’s mansion, but grandeur it did not lack. High sky lights shone onto an expansive grand entrance, mirrors of all lengths on the grey slate walls. Each mirror was crowned by the stuffed heads of different (supposedly) hunted animals. Deer, antelope, a moose- that was disconcerting- several boars, was that a reindeer holy Sky, and what Rayla was pretty sure was a rhinoceros head. Rayla was also pretty sure that last one was illegal. But hey, if you were bleeding money...  There was at most, twenty plus stuffed heads mounted to various sized lacquered plaques lining the entrance alone, their cold lifeless eyes following Rayla and Claudia as their footsteps echoed off the marble floor, past a long winding staircase. It was all Rayla could do not to shudder in Claudia’s presence; it was her house after all and reacting like that would kind of be rude, right? - even if Rayla could never imagine Claudia picking animal heads to decorate _anything_.

Did Lord Viren even hunt? Or were these just… prizes? They were both pretty uncomfortable thoughts. Rayla tried to put them both out of her head.

The entrance branched off into a pristine dining room (Rayla thought it looked almost too perfect- the whole house did- but that room stood out. If she squinted, she could see cobwebs on a trinity of candelabras- rather old fashioned and creepy, but hey, do it for the old rich guy aesthetic-  and detailed table setting as she passed. She wondered when was the last time there had been a meal eaten there, thinking about how Claudia was always eating with them at Harrow’s) and an immense living room where Rayla could hear the TV sounding off at a loud volume. “Soren!” Claudia called out.

The vast collection of dead things aside, Rayla realized there was not a single picture in sight. Yes, the odd modern architecture combined with the hunting lodge aesthetic set Lord Viren’s mansion apart from the more sensible interior design Sarai and Harrow set out for, but perhaps the biggest difference between the two forts was the lack of personable touch. Rayla couldn’t walk a couple meters in the mansion without passing a picture of the family- whether they were singular portraits, pictures of them all together including Amaya and even Gren in many cases, (Rayla’s favorite pictures where of the last real family photo session before Sarai’s death, they’d look so happy all together; it was nice to imagine they might someday be so again, even without her), hundreds upon hundreds of pictures of the boys (Rayla was never lacking in baby photos and school picture day prints to embarrass Callum with) and pictures Sarai had spent her free time as a pretty bomb photographer taking. Landscapes, nature, the like. They were all framed and lined the walls along with countless drawings done by both Callum and Sarai who- surprise, surprise- was also an incredibly talented artist, painter, and sculpture among everything else. Wonder where Callum picked that up. Even quite a few of Ezran’s drawings were hung. Perhaps there’d be more if both Callum and Rayla didn’t horde his drawings, but like either of them were going to give that up. There were plenty of awards and certificates the boys wracked up in school, Callum in art especially.  

Then someone, Rayla didn’t know who but she suspected either Callum and/or Ezran was behind it, maybe even Harrow, had recently framed a picture of her and the boys sleeping under a tree in the backyard. It was a gigantic picture, and she found herself in the hallway where it  hung often, staring at it when she needed a reminder she was loved, and a motivation to keep going.

But not a single picture adorned the wall’s of Lord Viren’s creepy as fuck house. No photos of little Claudia or baby Soren. Zero of the family together. Not a single award or medal, which was weird, considering how amazing of an athlete Soren had been and still was, not to mention how Claudia wiped the floor with her competition in just about anything she put her mind to. Just a series of different mirrors all reflecting Rayla’s disturbed reflection… and all those dead animals.

These two creepy trends continued into the large living room. There, lounging with all his limbs spread out on a satin white sofa- almost all the furniture was stark white to contrast the dark slate walls where even _more_ taxidermied animal heads hung (was that a _tiger??????_ Weren’t those _endangered???_ ) with the exception of an obsidian coffee table where his feet- wearing big fluffy rainbow socks- lay, was Soren, watching what looked like a football game on a big ass plasma screen TV, hanging above a desert stone fireplace that took up almost all of the wall. When Rayla squinted, she could see tiny skeletons of different tiny animals on top of the mantle. She doubted they might not be real, because the preserved rodent fetuses in draws of mysterious sure as fuck weren’t.

_Holy Fuck, what kind of hell have I stumbled into? Are those rats, oh Stars those are birds!!!_

She now understood why Callum and Ezran spent no time here.

“Hi, Sorbear.” Claudia walked in and ruffled her brother’s hair as she walked into the living room. Rayla followed, forcing her feet forward, hugging her chest. _Yeah... so, in which one of these closets does Lord Bitch have an actual elf skeleton?_

Soren swung his head around at the sound of her voice. It didn’t appear as if he had heard them come in, and was just now realizing that his sister had come home. “Sup, Cla- _dork._ Ha.” His mouth was covered with orange dust, and Rayla could see several bags of Cheeto Puffs on both the coffee table and expense as fuck _white_ couch. Just the sight of the orange coming so close to the soft white fabric was enough to skyrocket her anxiety, which, since entering the house, was already pretty high. _It’s not like you can dry clean a fucking couch!_ There was also an open jar of peanut butter and a Wonder Woman coffee mug full of guacamole on the coffee table, both with spoons stuck in them. _Okay is he sticking the Cheeto Puffs in the peanut butter and/or guacamole or is he just eating out of them with the spoons?_ Rayla had once seen Claudia eat peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon for lunch one day, and that was the only time Rayla had seen Claudia eat and not just read during lunch, _ever._

“Is Dad around?” Claudia asked. The hope in her voice was hard to miss.

Soren stuck another three cheetos in his mouth and licked his fingers before replying, “Well if he was home, he’d probably be yelling at me, and since there’s no one yelling at me-” Soren gestured with his cheeto hands to the room, “guess that means he’s not home. Woohoo.” He added with a certain blasee sarcasm.

Claudia crossed her arms and squinted at her brother, who had yet to even notice Rayla. Which was more than fine with her. She’d witnessed enough sibling squabbles between Callum and Ezran to know when to stay out of them. “Have you seen him at all?”

“Nope.” he’s mouth popped the word, eyes still glued to the football game.

“Did he come home last night?”

“I dunno Claudia, you were the one who stayed up reading fanfiction until like four in the morning, shouldn’t you know- Who is that?” Rayla had been checking her phone as the two of them bickered and was in the middle of drafting a message to Ezran, who’d sent her a picture of Bait riding Ava (Bait did _not_ look like he was having fun) when she realized Soren was talking to her (or at least talking _about_ her) and was full on staring, pointing one of his orange fingers her way.

Rayla opened her mouth to reply and it was a good thing Claudia beat her to it because she was not planning on saying anything particularly pleasant. She’d never met Soren. By the time Callum and Ez took her in, Soren had long graduated and was at Katolis University, where he dormed despite how close to home the college campus was. (But that made sense, who wouldn’t beeline it out of this animal torture house the second they had the chance?) According to Callum, it was rare he came home, and when he did, he kept it to the weekends and spent a lot of that time in Harrow’s mansion watching hockey games with the king, only the mansion was so massive that Rayla and Soren had never actually interacted. So far she was not impressed.

“That’s Rayla.” Claudia said with a smile, but then it fell as she attempted to prod him back to their previous conversation. “You didn’t like see him in his office when you went to work out? Or when you went to see Marcos?”

“You’re hanging out with _her_ ?” Soren asked with unmistakable disbelief. He was _still_ pointing.

Well _that_ stung. Rayla wondered if it would upset Claudia if she just ran out of this stupid mansion right this second- after breaking Soren’s finger, of course. After all, was she even welcome in the house of a government official so hellbent on raging war on her kind?

“We hang out all the time.” Claudia shrugged him off, the radiant smile back on her face.

_I mean, not like this,_ Rayla might have pointed out if she weren’t too busy staring Soren down, her arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed. Gone were all thoughts of running away at Claudia’s kind words, replaced by many thoughts of hitting Soren in his stupid chiseled jaw. Possibly more than once.  

“Yeah…” Soren blinked, “but you never bring her over here.” In desperation, Rayla tried not to think about the hordes of friends she _did_ bring over here. Guess she’d never been considered before today. It didn’t work, and running away sounded appealing once more.

“How would you know, you’re like never here.” she retorted, softening the sharp blow by booping his nose.

Soren looked from his sister to Rayla, then back to his sister, then back to Rayla. “So what are you guys gonna like... do?”

_Well that’s a weird way to phrase it._ What was up with this idiot anyway? “Oh she has a date tonight, so we’re going to do like this whole makeover thing, it’s gonna be fun!” Back was her contagious excitement. Rayla found herself smiling at Claudia, just a little.

“Oh she has a date tonight…” Soren repeated. There was this weird smile on his face, and it was starting to make Rayla uncomfortable. You know, besides the fourteen plus dead animals staring straight into her soul.

“Yep!”  Out of the blue, Claudia grabbed Rayla’s hand again and whisking her away when Soren called her back.

“Um, yo Rayla?” Rayla let go of Claudia’s hand as if it was ice at the sound of her brother’s voice calling her back into the living room. The other girl didn’t notice, so swept up in her good mood that she just continued practically skipping back to the grand staircase. It was _really_ cute. She probably thought Rayla was still behind her.

“What?” She turned to glare at the human boy. _I’m kind of busy, moron- wait why are your eyebrows and hair two different colors? Is that a weird human genetic thing or…_

“Listen,” he sighed, his mouth falling to a straight line. Rayla raised an eyebrow, still unimpressed. “Just, whatever you do, don’t hurt my sister.”

Her anger was instant, flooding her stomach and coloring her vision. _Of course_ he thought her motives were such, all idiot humans and their stupid prejudices! Couldn’t she go one day, just one, without their dumb accusations? But this was Lord Viren’s esteemed and privileged son. She shouldn’t have been so thrown. “Elves aren’t like that, you _idiot_ -”

“ _Not_ like that, geez!” He stopped her practiced rant in its tracks with a scoff. “I mean, you know-” he gestured again, but no, Rayla _didn’t_ know. Not exactly.

_Like emotionally? How could I possibly do that? More importantly, why on Earth would I ever hurt Claudia?_ “Ummm,” Rayla pursed her lips, unsure of where to go from here.

“Rayla!” Claudia’s voice echoed into the living room, and Rayla jumped. Right, she was supposed to go upstairs, not have this weirdly personal conversation with the brother she’d just barely met.

Soren had turned back to the TV. Guess the conversation was over, thank the Moon Above. With a smile, Rayla couldn’t help but shout “Rugby’s better.” as she jogged backwards out of the room just slow enough to revel in how his dumb mouth dropped in complete shock.

At least now he had a _legit_ reason to hate Elves.

_

Maybe because it was her stubborn nature, or maybe because again for the fifteenth that _hour_ she realized she wasn’t worthy of Claudia’s time, but Rayla just had to put up a fight about the whole makeover thing. It sounded nice in the car, but that was before she witnessed Claudia’s extensive collection of human beauty products that rivaled her father’s collection of preserved dead things. Yeah, when she put it that way, it sounded like it was an extensive collection of torture instruments, but it _was_ torture to get all dressed up for a date with some dumb human that _wasn’t_ Claudia.

Rayla had followed Claudia up the winding staircase with ease, used to having to climb great steps of stairs since having moved in with Cal and Ezran. Claudia’s room was at the end of one of two infinite halls on the second floor. _Maybe they each have a wing? How grand..._ The first thing Rayla noticed when she walked in was the freaking Keurig and mini fridge. That was a _hella_ expensive coffee maker, like, possibly the best one the brand even made -it was even nicer than the several around Harrow’s place- in her room, but was that _really_ a surprise? This one was almost industrial grade, if they even made industrial grade Keurigs. Her attention was drawn to these two features because Claudia was digging through one of many boxes of coffee pods and asking her if she wanted anything.

_No, you don’t Rayla, don’t ask more of her, hasn’t she done enough already_? “Stars, yes.” One word from Rayla and the mean voice shut up.

Coffee was, without a doubt, the best thing about living in the human kingdoms. Okay, second only to Ez and Callum. But still, it was a _close_ second. She blamed Callum for her semi addiction; her first months at a _private_ human high school had been rough and as a solution to help her stop falling asleep in class, Callum told her to start drinking coffee. And of course she hated it when he had shoved his Dr. Who mug in her direction, “accidently” did a spit take in his face, and cursed him and the rest of the damned human race for their awful taste in _everything_.

“Just at least experiment with it!” Callum urged, wiping coffee off his face, Ezran behind him almost choking on a jelly tart he was laughing so hard. Even Bait looked amused- if only for a few seconds.

“Are you _trying_ to poison me?” she had asked, still gagging.

“You know what,” crossing his arms, Callum just shook his head. “This is what I get for trying to help you. Hot coffee in my face, _and_ on my scarf, nice going Rayla!” She just rolled her eyes. “I bet you can’t hack it.”

Oh, he _didn’t_. “Whad’ya just say?”

“I _said_ , bet you can’t hack it! I bet you won’t even try it again, you know, being the stubborn Moon Elf you are.” he stuck his head out with brazen confidence, just asking for Rayla to punch his smug face.

But before she could do that, or break his arm like she was also contemplating, Ezran stopped any pending fight by picking up Bait, then taking Callum by the hand and proceeding to drag them both out of the kitchen away from a pissed Rayla, saying “Cal, you really need to stop flirting with death so much.”

Out of spite, she did drink it again. Hated it _again_ , but determined to make sure Callum didn’t win, she began experimenting, which is how the Starbuck trips began. She asked Ezran to teach her how to use the Keurig behind his brother’s back. Ez was only permitted to drink hot chocolate and apple cider and he loved making the drinks with the pods, so in exchange for his help, Rayla let him have sips of the super caffeinated and sugary drink (because he _also_ showed Rayla all the kinds of creamer in the main fridge and also the sugar packets in the main pantry, so _she_ let him eat the sugar straight out of the packet as they poured like five or six into the drink) they’d concocted together. He spent the rest of the day bouncing off the walls and it was revenge enough to watch Callum chase after him, wondering in great frustration what could have possibly made the relatively calm human child so damn hyper.

Getting through the day meant drinking a lot of coffee. The caffeine did wonders for her, at least for the most part.  The more vigorous her classes became, the more coffee she drank. Then at one point it had gotten so bad, her grades slipping and her standing on the lacrosse team slipping with it, that she switched to energy drinks, and that had followed the same dangerous pattern as the coffee had. At one point she wasn’t sleeping. Or eating. Just inhaling those damn drinks. Then she fainted in the drawing room out of pure exhaustion and anxiety, and that’s exactly how she ended up in the emergency room a week before exams last semester. (That’s also how Callum discovered Elven and Human pathologies were different, because she kept saying that every she time drank one too many for a human a day to get him off her back. Turned out it was _still_ too many.)

Since that hospital visit, energy drinks had been banned from the mansion, but Rayla hadn’t touched one since then because as it turned out- human hospitals were the absolute _worst_. Just went back to coffee, and listened to Callum when he cut her off, even if she hated him in the moment for it, she was grateful later.

Claudia gestured for Rayla to come choose something, handing her what appeared to be a hand painted mug, out of a bunch of coffee cups and varying sizes of mugs, with stripes of different shades of pink- _Pink? Hmm. I thought everything was purple with her?_ \- and let her make hers first. While Rayla was pressing the familiar buttons on the coffee maker, Claudia had pulled her phone out again and suddenly gentle pop music coming from speakers Rayla couldn’t see replaced the silence that had previously enveloped them.

“What color do you want your nails to be? I was thinking something,” Rayla turned around, one glorious and relieving sip of coffee in, to see Claudia hoisting a giant professional makeup case onto her king sized bed, and she almost choked, “teal, or violet, to match the romper.”

“That’s… quite a lot.” Rayla tried not to make it obvious she was having second thoughts. With the practiced swish of her hand, Claudia unlatched the case and flung it open on her bed. Rayla swallowed and came up to stand behind her. In the back of her head, she could hear Runaan’s voice repeating a common phrase from her childhood.

_“Humans are particularly infatuated with different forms of torture.”_

Surveying the mass of nail polish- Rayla had never seen that many shades of purple in her whole freaking life- and other manicure type tools she couldn’t identify, she couldn’t help but feel that her previous guardian might have been on to something. Getting her nails done by the girl she had a hopeless crush on wasn’t exactly what she pictured when Runaan would talk like that, but hey- it _might_ have been what he was alluding to, you never know. Claudia spent an eternity, or at least it felt that way to Rayla, digging through the tiny glass bottles, mumbling something along the lines of “I swear there are other colors in here.” Rayla chuckled, trying to cover up her laughter by taking another sip from the pink striped mug.

_Guess the real torture is how cute you are,_ Rayla thought with a smirk, thinking it would calm her nerves but every other sensible part of her was booing her own bad joke.

“You know,” Rayla looked down at the coffee, “you don’t have to like, do my nails if you don’t want to.”

“Ah-ha!” Claudia came out of the trunk with two bottles of nail polish; one a light lilac, another a light blue so lustrous it was almost silver. There was a high chance she missed every word Rayla said. She set the coffee down back near the Keurig so she could hug herself. You know, pathetically. _Ouch.... try not to dwell on that._ Then again, this girl was a like a crow. Easily distracted by lots of things- especially if they were shiny- a prize to keep on the shelf to her beloved father- what she didn’t say anything, what were you talking about? “Perfect, absolutely perfect!” she sang out, fetching a small purple towel and a translucent makeup bag full of more torture devices- _also_ a dark purple- from the trunk, before grabbing Rayla’s hand.

_Great more torture tools- SUN ABOVE SHE’S HOLDING MY HAND AGAIN DOES SHE EVEN REALIZE?_ “I just don’t think I fit-” how should she put this? “- that it’s going to impress anybody.” Claudia had pulled them both down onto her carpeted floor and was spreading the towel when she looked up at her with those wide green eyes.

“Don’t you want to look pretty for your date?”

Oh.

_Oh_.

_This is her concept of beauty,_ Rayla’s heart faltered under the all to familiar feeling of rejection, _perfect, flawless, shiny things. And that is not you, Rayla. You are battered, and tired, and broken, and this is just temporary. This beauty regime is a band aid that will just fall off in the end._

Rubbing her arm, Rayla whispered, “Yeah. Guess I’m not that pretty now.”

There was another strained moment of silence. Rayla was great at creating those, it was almost her strongest talent next to fucking things up. When she gathered the courage to glance up, she found Claudia staring at Rayla’s fingers. Her eyebrows were furrowed and she was also biting her lip. It was kind of hot, but it also brought another punch-in-the-stomach feeling of repudiation for what was probably coming next.

_I swear to the Sky, if she makes a comment about my four fucking fingers I’m going to jump out that motherfucking window. That way I’m forever out of Claudia’s perfect hair, and then Lord Venereal Disease will have another elf skeleton for his many creepy closets! Hooray, everybody wins!_

“Your nails are in really good shape!”

“‘Scuse me?”

For what seemed like the hundredth time that day, Claudia surprised her again by taking the conversation a place Rayla would never have guessed it to go. _Guess I should stop trying to guess._ But in her defense, every human- well the ones that were paying attention to her enough to notice, - brought up the four fingers thing. Callum, that little lovable shit, brought up every chance he got.

“I mean they’re a little long,” Claudia continued, picking Rayla’s left hand up with her own flawless dark violet manicure while shaking one the bottles of nail polish, “but I don’t think we need to cut them-”

Rayla had a bad habit of letting them grow too long, often only cutting them when she accidently scratched Callum or herself. Callum, on the other hand, had bitten his nails since childhood and Rayla had taken to throwing things at him when she caught him chewing on his fingers; however, he was making absolutely no efforts to stop, probably to intentionally annoy her. “I don’t mind cutting them if you want too-”

“It’s fine,” Claudia waved her off and Rayla tried not to reel back at the strong unmistakable scent of nail polish that had just hit her as Claudia untwisted one of the caps, “I mean it’s not like you want to be Callum with his weirdly short nails.”

“Ha!” It was hard not to fall over onto the carpet and completely mess up Claudia’s concentration  Rayla found herself laughing so hard. She could only describe her stupid laughter as cackling; her damn eyes were _watering_. “Roasting Callum should bring us together like this.”

Giggling, Claudia leaned in and winked. “Callum doesn’t have to know.”

“Oh my Stars…”

Once they managed to stop laughing, and it did take a while, because every time one of them managed to stop long enough to take a sorely needed breath, the other one would snort and they’d start all over again, but after awhile Rayla wiped the tears out of her eyes and Claudia managed to compose herself long enough to actually start painting Rayla’s nails. It was a strange, intimate feeling. It wasn’t ever like Rayla had painted her own nails or went to salons, or had other female friends who did stuff like this (Ellis was the only other human girl Rayla interacted with, but Ellis was several years younger and in elementary school, had a platinum membership to the Katolis Zoo so she wasn’t exactly one of those disturbingly young Instagram girls and one time she and Ezran got _thrown_ _out_ of a fucking Petco for trying to smuggle all the “poor suffering” goldfish, specifically the ones in weird small containers that looked half dead, out of the store to throw them back into some sort of natural water resource- Rayla highly doubted they’d planned that far in advance- by putting them in a fucking water cooler, because _that_ wasn’t suspicious at all.) So yeah, this was new.

_A good new?_ Rayla wondered as she watched her plain fingernails become adorned with a coat of sparkling silver.

Not wanting to break Claudia’s concentration- though she knew from experience not much could, it was ironclad, especially in the case of books or fanfiction on her phone- Rayla kept from speaking, despite having a million questions. Questions like _how did you even learn how to do this, this is like some sort of black magic Holy Stars,_ and _why do you have so many shades of purple? Does like, the store have any left?_ It was enough to just stare at her. And yeah, she was being kind of creepy, but Claudia was kind of fucking beautiful.

There was a reason people stared so long at suns and stars. Beautiful yet blinding.

_“Even though, you tell you me you love me”_ Rayla realized music was still playing, and it broke her own concentration, _“I’m afraid you just love my disguise…”_

This was her first real chance to take in Claudia’s room. She’d been so focused on her own guilt and trepidation when the human girl brought her upstairs, and then she’d been distracted by the coffee for a moment or two, then she was contemplating the parameters that technically made this tortue, then she was staring at Claudia. On a positive note, Lord Viren’s disturbing decorating had not really followed into Claudia’s room. Gone were the dark grey walls, empty of memories, replaced by a soft lavender covered in a lifetime of moments.

Rayla reckoned it was about the size of her own room back at King Harrow’s mansion. That being said, they were both massive rooms, consisting of almost too much space to fill, but Claudia compensated. A king bed, fit for a princess with it’s carmel lacquer posts and transparent lilac drapes, stood against one wall complemented by an amethyst comforter and way to many varying sizes and types of pillows- both different shades of purple and black- for one single person. There were some stuffed animals, all displayed at one end of the bed, and worn black blanket that looked as if someone had perhaps crocheted it. Her Macbook lay next to it, a sticker on it that read “you say witch like it’s a bad thing.” A grand vanity with a large oval mirror lay against the other wall. There was more makeup products, all arranged intricately by type, brand and size from what Rayla could make out, than she could count on its surface. A long white desk was next to the door, along with three full bookshelves. Also organized, the desk contained not only the Keurig with the mini fridge underneath, as well as about three feet of stacked coffee pod boxes, but also containers of school supplies sorted by color and textbooks for subjects Rayla was almost certain their school didn’t even offer, complete with a monthly calendar filled with notes that took up a good portion of the desk’s surface. This was incredibly impressive to the Moon Elf, because the most common thing on any surface of Rayla’s room were empty water bottles (Callum once commented she had a enough for a Water Bottle Army and then she and Ezran made an actual game out of it) and dirty dishes. Not to mention, all of Rayla’s limited wardrobe managed to avoid her walk in closet where it was _supposed_ to be, and was all over her floor.

Claudia seemed to demonstrate an almost obsessive kind of discipline in the cleanlinesses of her room; not a single dirty dish, no clothes out of place, dirty or clean, no misplaced assignments or broken phone chargers. (Rayla went through those like fucking crazy and never remembered to throw the veterans away.) There was however, an exception. Despite the stuffed bookshelves, other books were strewn _everywhere_. The bed, the desk, the vanity, they littered the whole freaking floor. She had her own book army that could beat Rayla’s water bottle army.

As Claudia started on a second coat, her eyes wandered and studied the walls. What Viren did not appreciate in his children, Claudia did. Awards and trophies abound hung on the wall where the desk stood. It looked like Claudia had never made anything but high A’s her entire academic career. Huh. National Merit Scholar, Debate Team, Student Council, National Honor Society, Key Club, Katolian Music Education Association, Katolian Dance Association, Voices of Tomorrow, holy Earth and Ocean, she couldn’t even count the array of awards, medals, and trophies and it broke her heart that they were here, instead of in the place of jars of fucking rat fetuses.

Then there were posters of women Rayla didn’t recognize; the pop musicians Callum despised, she figured. Names like King Princess and Banks and Kesha, Betty Who, Lady Gaga, Kelhani, MUNA, Mary Lambert. _None_ of those rang any bells. Moon Above, she should really start paying attention to human pop culture and let Callum just make her those damn flash cards he was always threatening her with.  Some names weren’t in sight, just album titles, like a picture of a woman who Rayla could have _sworn_ was a motherfucking Sun Elf, the words _Dirty Computer_ written underneath. Sounded intriguing enough. Then there was another album cover next to the gorgeous Star Elf, human, but the name of the album _did_ ring a bell this time. But not for any reason Rayla could put her finger on.

_Expectations… why does that sound so familiar? The one time I might know the music she likes and I can’t fucking remember! Suns Rayla, get a solid eight hours of sleep for once, would ya?_

The photos were Rayla’s favorite part of Claudia’s room. The most recent ones were polaroids, hence the polaroid camera sitting on her desk. _Wonder how expensive that was._ There were plenty including Claudia herself looking stunning as always, but most seemed to group selfies or moments consisting of three other people: Soren, Callum, and Ezran. Soren in different pieces of rainbow clothing, Callum concentrating on his drawing, Ezran showing off Bait, the four of them doing what Rayla supposed was a _Breakfast Club_ pose, Soren posing as fucking Molly Ringwald made her fucking day. Photos of them at Cal and Ezran’s pool, Stars Rayla _hated_ that pool. Occasionally someone Rayla didn’t recognize appeared in the photos, a dark haired boy often photographed with Soren. One photo was of them in the pool’s adjoining hot tub, and while most pictures were captioned with only a date, this one was caption “Two Bros Chillin in a Hot Tub.” Whatever _that_ meant.

Some pictures were framed, liked the one of Claudia and Soren at what looked like a packed stadium for some concert, both flashing peace signs and wearing black t-shirts that read in large white letters “ _1-2-3 LET’S GO BITCH”_ and Rayla was at a complete fucking loss for what that was a reference to. Others were simply hung on the wall, glittering in her dark purple fairy lights. The older photos were just photos, not polaroids, something Rayla found kind of ironic. Countless Halloweens, year after year, guess she _really_ liked the holiday. Given her goth aesthetic, that shouldn’t have surprised Rayla that much. Claudia was a witch every single year, admirable. Pictures of the princes dressed as some of the boys from Stranger Things- that was the Halloween before Rayla stumbled into their lives- Soren dressed as what Rayla was sure was a My Little Pony, but given her knowledge of humans she hoped to Skies she was wrong. Winter Solstice celebrations, birthdays, even a really old photo of super young Claudia and Callum trying to feed ice cream to Ezran in a high chair. _Awh._ Some older photos included Claudia’s father, like her third birthday. She was pictured every year blowing out candles on a purple frosted birthday cake, Soren and the princes crowding her, but Viren had disappeared from the frame little by little and was gone completely by her eleventh birthday.

The only other discernible evidence of Viren in Claudia’s room was a glass case that hung above Claudia’s bed. It was full of preserved butterflies of all different specimens, their species name engraved on thin silver plaques underneath. Their delicate lives stolen only to be frozen, nailed and displayed, silenced for the rest of time. _Stars and Moon, holy fucking shit._

“ _Happy Birthday Sweetie. Love, Dad”_ a silver plaque read underneath.

_MOTHERFUCK-_ “Other hand.” Claudia was saying. When Rayla managed to rip her eyes away from the wall of dead butterflies, she found Claudia holding her hand out for Rayla’s.

“Oh.” Rayla complied. “Huh.”

“What’s that?” asked Claudia. Her eyes were glued to her delicate work.

“I just realized something…” Rayla muttered, looking back to the wall of photos. It was begin to dawn on her that only her brothers and the boys who might as well be brothers were the only other people in the photographs. And from that realization, something in Rayla’s head clicked all at once. “You don’t have any friends.”

“Well thanks for the reminder, Ray.” Claudia looked up to stare at her while Rayla silently cursed herself for being so blunt. But then a small crooked smile broke out on the other girl’s face.

“I didn’t mean-” Rayla stuttered in a messy attempt to either backtrack or explain, “it’s just-”

“It’s fine, Rayla, really.” shrugged Claudia. “I mean, you’re not wrong.”

Sighing, the Moon Elf closed her eyes and tried again. Stars, she was bad at this, big surprise there. “You just seem like-”

The human girl finished for her. “Like someone who would be really popular? Because of my father’s money, right?”

Rayla nodded. She was too ashamed to actually speak the words into existence.

“I mean most other people, yeah, being really, really rich and having parents in the government, they enjoy the popularity. Soren used to drink it _up._ ” Claudia pushed her hair out of her face.

“Yeah, but he was also a football player. Like, the best in the entire school’s history. That had to have been some of the reason people were drawn to him, right?.”

“Like moths to a flame.” she nodded. “But even Soren knew that it was mostly the money, and Dad’s status. We’ve just been alone, like our entire lives, so I think for him he just didn’t want to be alone anymore.”

_Can’t say I blame him._ “It didn’t matter to him that most of it wasn’t-” she waved her hand around, “you know, real. You’re right about the athlete thing though. Because of it, people never like, talked shit about him. But when _I_ make friends, it’s not long before whatever things they say behind my back get back to me.”

“So, it’s better to be alone?” Rayla’s heart fell to her stomach, reminded of the way people looked at her after her parents messed everything up. How no one would ever give her a chance, even though _she’d_ done nothing wrong. How she just longed for someone to listen to her, for a friend.

“Mmm-hmm. And plus they usually abandon me after I won’t go out with them-” _wait, you won’t?_ \- “and you know what that means, or they find out about the studying schedule, or they get upset that I want to read and they want to talk or _something_. Once they find out how weird I really am-”

“I don’t think you’re weird.” Rayla found herself saying, without thinking. _I mean if_ you’re _weird then I am walking nightmare._

Claudia smiled. “Thanks. You might be the only one. Someone, I think one of the salutatorians, started a rumor or like an inside joke about me that I am a witch who practices blood magic, and that’s how I get my grades. They have this thing, to like get me out of like the valedictorian spot, cause I’d think they’d kill for it. They call it a ‘witch hunt.’”

“Wow.” Rayla’s jaw had dropped. “That’s just-”

“Lacking creativity?” she suggested.

Rayla blinked. “Well I was going to say mean, but I guess?”

“That’s rich kid academia for you.” She said this like it was some occupational hazard and not completely bizarre that a bunch of high schoolers would probably resort to tearing limbs off for a speech at graduation. “I’m pretty used to it by now, it doesn’t really bother me. _Their_ validation means about nothing to me.”

Well _that_ was a lot to unpack.

“If it makes you feel any better, they call me a bloodthirsty monster. Sometimes to my face.”

“Holy shit, that’s rude. Is it because you’re a-” Claudia finished by pointing to her own head then to Rayla’s horns.

“Yep.” Rayla popped her lips. “It’s just you’re run-of-the-mill standard Elf prejudice around here. Speaking of things you get used to.”

“That sucks.”

“In all fairness, I made it a lot worse when I beat that Travis kid up on the football field.” admitted Rayla. She really was the root of all her own problems.

“I hate that guy.” muttered Claudia. “Why did you beat him up? I bet he deserved it.”

“More than deserved it. Sun Above what a fucking _asshole._ He was bothering Callum and called him some… names.” Rayla cringed at the memory. Callum had been in the bleachers during one of Rayla’s track and field practices, writing an essay and listening to his headphones bothering a total number of _zero_ people. Travis was on the junior varsity football team- which practiced on the football field that the track surrounded the same time as Rayla’s practices and had ego bigger than any fifteen year old boy Rayla had ever seen, which was saying something monumental. His parents, like the parents of every other student in that stupid school of spoiled human brats, were drowning in money and just happened to _despise_ Harrow for his attempts to heal the rift between Xadia and the human kingdoms. Travis chose that particular day to take his parents’ political views out on Callum.

Rayla had been dumping her water bottle out onto her sweat soaked hair when she spotted Travis parading up to the bleaches with his other Axe drenched fuck boy friends to where Callum was, and even though she couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, as soon as she saw Callum’s face, the track coach got his first real look at how fast Rayla could _actually_ run.

“You need to leave him alone!” Rayla yelled, interrupting his stream of insults thrown Callum’s way. Callum had stood up to defend himself, and his eyes widened when he saw Rayla storming their way.

“Rayla it’s okay-” he held his hand out because Callum probably did have it handled and she might have walked away, but Travis just _had_ to open his dumb mouth and Rayla had already had a _really_ shit day.

“Oh, it looks like the ugly Elf dyke is gonna defend the Royal Fa-” Rayla’s fist collided with his jaw before he could finish his sick, disgusting sentence.

In the end, Callum managed to pull Rayla off the boy, but the damage had been done. She’d broken his nose in several places, blackened his eyes and bruised his jaw and torn out a clump of his hair; he landed only two punches, too busy squealing and crying like baby the entire time, but he managed to blacken her eye and bust her lip.

“And if you _ever_ come near us again-” Rayla shouted one last threat, spitting the blood from her lip out at the crowd Callum was pulling her away from.

That was _supposed_ to be the end for Rayla. The big mess up she was waiting for that would have Harrow throwing her things out on the curve. But it wasn’t. Instead, King Harrow found them in the office that day, pulled from what was intended to be an incredibly vital meeting for the future of Katolis’ economy to deal with the disobedient and violent elf he had decided to house, Callum biting his nails and Rayla crushing the ice pack against her lips and trying to hold back tears, and he hugged them both for a long, long time. He told them he heard what had happened. And then he marched into the principal’s office, where Rayla had been thrown out of after a lecture for most of the school’s top administration _and_ Lujanne that had lasted almost 90 minutes, and convinced them not only to let Rayla stay at the school, but also not to suspend her for any amount of time.

Just one more reasons she was indebted to his kindness.

“Mmm, so that’s why Callum was so happy about me coming to practice with him.” Claudia mumbled.

_Wait. You come to my practices? Since when? Since I beat up Travis? That was… you’ve been coming all this time? How have I not noticed that?_

“Callum’s like my only friend. My only _real_ friend, besides you now.” Claudia broke Rayla’s train of thought. “I used to just tag along with Soren and his friends, until they got annoyed with me, and of course then they graduated. And then Callum got to high school and now we just follow each other.” _Oh, that’s why you’re coming to practice. Yeah, that makes sense._ “He has trouble making friends, you know being a prince and all. They wanna suck up to him too, but like call him a nerd behind his back.”

_Nerd is the nicest thing they call him behind his back._

“Callum is my only friend too.”

“What about the other elves?”

That just made Rayla snort. “Oh yeah, they _love_ me, the elf that beat up a human kid for no apparent reason’ and made them all look bad. They especially love that the kid of the two most cowardly elves in all of Xadia landed it in with the King, they _totally_ think I earned that somehow.”

“What a trio we make.” Claudia sighed.

“Maybe we should start a support group. The three of us.” _I_ guess _Callum can come along..._

“Yeah, a group for weirdos with hated parents and no friends, and no partners for any of those menial group projects.” Claudia giggled and Rayla snorted, _again._

“Those are the wooooorst.” But it did make Rayla realize yet _another_ thing. Wow, had she been blind about so many things before. “Hey, I just realized that you’re in a lot of my classes…” Claudia nodded in response, “so, I dunno, if you wanted too and needed a partner, you could always team up with me. And I see you sitting alone a lot,” which Rayla just realized she did, “you could always come sit with me. If you wanted, you don’t have too-”

“I’d like that.” Claudia said, smiling. “Okay! I’m done!”

“Huh?” Rayla tilted her head in confusion. She’d completely forgotten what they were doing. Looking down, she saw her nails were indeed finished, her index finger the light lilac, and the rest of her fingers the cadet bluish silver. The whole color scheme screamed Moon Elf. _Hey Runaan, you’re cool with me hanging with the human girl and daughter of the politician bent on destroying us as long as she paints my nails colors that remind me of home, right?_ “Oh. Wow.”

“I know right? Now don’t touch _anything_ ,” Claudia enanciated every word like she sometimes talked to Ezran and the one and only time Callum tried to help Rayla with her Katolian history homework, “they’re still drying.”

“Well I knew that.” Rayla couldn’t help but let the playful sarcasm slip into her voice. “Guess I better cancel my plans of touching everything in sight.”

“Oh, sorry. I know that was _really_ important to you.” Claudia returned the sarcasm with such ease, and they burst out laughing. _Stop making me fall for you you! Stop it!_

Of course, Claudia wasn’t going to stop any time soon. What happened in slow motion, but still too fast for Rayla. Their giggles were starting to falter, and Rayla was staring into those amazing eyes of hers, when Claudia reached her hand up out of nowhere and brushed a stray piece of Rayla’s hair behind her ears. Their foreheads were almost touching. Time might as well have stopped in Rayla’s world. It was the most intimate, and cruel thing, she could have ever done.

_WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS HAPPENING DID SHE JUST-_ but wherever Rayla hoped the moment was going, it didn’t. _Great fucking job, Rayla, getting your hopes up was like the opposite of what you were supposed to do here._ Claudia just gave her that wide smile and announced “Let’s do your hair!”

_

“Do you dye this?”

“Huh?”

After being swept into the chair in front of vanity by Claudia, Rayla did her best not slump down when met with her reflection for the _second_ time in one day ( _You again._ ) while Claudia emerged from her walk in closet with yet another professional grade case of torture instruments, this one Rayla assumed was filled with hair thingy-ma-bobs. She wasn’t sure what else to label them in her mind. Claudia rummaged through it for a few moments and in the mirror’s reflection Rayla could see her pull some different tools out, the only discernible and recognizable thing a hairbrush, but she was mostly just preoccupied with scowling at herself in the mirror.

Now Claudia was running her fingers through Rayla’s hair after pulling the scrunchie out of the water spout and letting it slip onto her arm next to several bracelets and other hair ties; she practically playing with it. _And so the cruelty continues._ “I meant the color,” Claudia was saying, flipping the ends of Rayla’s hair up and about, “do you dye it?”

“Oh, no… Moon Elf is just silver.” Rayla wondered if that was a good enough answer.

“Well it’s really pretty, I’ve always been _so_ jealous of your hair.”

“ _What_?”  

Why on Earth would this perfect human girl be jealous of her dingy hair?

“Why?” was all Rayla could manage to say.

“Well it’s beautiful,” Claudia said like it was _nothing_ and as soon Rayla opened her mouth, Claudia proceeded to blow her fucking mind and shut her up with “and before you make another sly comment under your breath about how you are not pretty, I’m just gonna shut that down, because you _are_ pretty.”

_What. Is. Even. Happening?_

“Um…” Rayla pursed her lips. What exactly was supposed to be her response to this?

Claudia just kept unwinding and winding strands of Rayla’s silver hair with her fingers. “It’s always really frustrating when someone really beautiful thinks of themselves as ugly.”

“You think I’m… beautiful?” It came out as a question because Rayla was not sure what was occuring was actually real. She fully expected Soren or Callum or some other person to jump out from under her desk or bed and yell “SIKE” real loud. Like this _was_ a prank show, right?

“Well, duh.”

_WHAT. IS. HAPPENING????????????? WHATISHAPPENING?WHATISHAPPENING?WHATIS HAPPENING?OHMYFUCKINGSTARS??????_

Claudia did keep talking, but Rayla didn’t hear the next part because she was trying not to melt into a puddle in the chair. Claudia thought she was pretty. _Claudia_ thought she was pretty. Like this was the girl who had dumbass freshman boys tripping over themselves to catcall her, and she thought _Rayla_ was pretty? One part of her reminded herself _not_ to get her hopes up because like with most nice straight girls, it was most likely coming from a place of platonic politeness and didn’t mean anything else. But the other part was screaming _WHO THE FUCK CARES SHE THINKS I’M PRETTY FUCK OFF AND LET ME ENJOY SOMETHING FOR ONCE._

“...like I would kill for this hair color.” Oh, right. She was still talking. Rayla should probably listen. “I have to dye my ends.”

“Well I didn’t think they came that way.” she replied, winking at their dual reflection in the mirror. This was too much confidence for one person. Rayla was enjoying herself _way_ too much. This was probably going to be her downfall and it would totally be worth it.

Claudia snorted and Rayla somehow managed to melt further into the chair. “How often do you dye it?” asked Rayla.

“Mmm, pretty often.” she responded after a minute of contemplation, “Soren and I make this whole big day out of it. Get the bleach out, take over one of the bathrooms, usually mine cause his is _always_ a mess, put on some Madonna, it’s fun!”

As hard as she tried, Rayla could _not_ process what she was telling her. “You’re telling me… that the star quarterback of the highest ranking high school and college in the kingdom… currently downstairs watching sad rugby and eating cheeto puffs and guacamole with a _spoon_ … lets you dye his hair blond?” _Guess that explains his mismatching eyebrows._

“Oh yeah, totally.” Claudia’s nodding was emphatic, before she leaned down towards Rayla and smiled at her in the mirror before whispering, “but you _can’t_ tell anyone, cause it’s his biggest secret. He would _die_ if anyone knew.”

“I’m texting Callum _right_ now.”

“Ha!”

_Rayla’s cell to callum (scarf dork) 5:29 pm_

**** “soren dyes his fucking hair.”

Rayla’s phone buzzed in the next second because his reply was instantaneous.

_callum (scarf dork) 5:29 pm_

“I KNEW IT”

then, a second later-

_callum (scarf dork) 5:30 pm_

    “update: Ez now owes me ten dollars. I can finally retire and live the life I deserve.”

_Rayla 5:30 pm_

    “congrats?????? i guess????”

Suddenly Rayla had to move her legs out the way, tearing her attention away from her cell phone, as Claudia was down on all fours under the vanity. “Sorry,” she called out, Rayla pulled her knees to her chest on the chair, “I’m just trying to… oh fuck, c’mon... I’m just trying to plug this curling iron in.”

_Oh no, a curling iron._ _Ughhhhhhhhhh,_ one part of her thought, but the other more optimistic side that Claudia had inspired in her whispered, _but hey- she thinks you’re pretty, what harm is this going to do?_

It turned out the curling did no harm, because it did nothing. Claudia tried different strands of Rayla’s hair and wrapped it around the curling iron for a good amount of time (she burnt herself on _five_ different occasions, Rayla counted. “Are you okay?!” “Oh yeah, this happens all the time!” Of _course_ it did. Rayla swallowed the urge to ask after that, even though she winced everytime Claudia yelped.) but the curls would not stay, instead falling back to the limp strands that started out as.

“Well... I don’t think your hair curls.”

Rayla’s shoulders fell. _Wow, even your hair is bad at stuff._  Trying to hide her shame and disappointment, she muttered “Sorry about that.”

“Mine doesn’t either.” shrugged Claudia.

This Rayla straightening up. “Huh. Really?”

“Yep.” she nodded, “just stays straight. _Unfortunately._ ” The last word bounced off her tongue with an odd whimsy, and she winked again.

Her next tactic started with the hairbrush- which was probably smart since Rayla hadn’t actually brushed it since her run this morning, content to just let it be messy. As Claudia began dragging through Rayla’s hair, she explained her new plan. “So instead of curls, I’m now thinking like a braid that starts maybe here?” She poked the top of Rayla’s head between her horns.

“Sure, yeah. You’re the expert.” Rayla sent her a smile and Claudia started gather strands at the top of her hair with delicate meticulousness. It was kind of… soothing, having Claudia’s hands in her hair. Was that weird to think?

“It’s a shame about that curling iron though,” sighed Claudia as she started braiding. “Soren bought it for my like thirteenth birthday, I think? But you know, my hair doesn't curl, so it’s been sitting in my case for like three years. I keep hoping I’ll get to use it on somebody.” Rayla’s heart sunk. Sky Above Dammit, why couldn’t her stupid hair just curl? “Maybe I’ll give it to Ellis?”

Rayla perked up at this. She shouldn’t have, because Claudia had pulled her braid tight and it sent her head jerking back. It hurt like fuck, and she hissed loudly. “Oh, I’m sorry!” Claudia released the braid, the whole thing coming undone immediately and started gripping her shoulders. “You’re okay, right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rayla waved her off, trying not to smile at her worry. Claudia was now starting over, her grip more gentle this time around. “You know Ellis? The one with the wolf-dog?”

“It’s part _wolf?_ ” Hey eyes widened. “I always thought Ava looked like one of those sheep herding dogs.”

Rayla couldn’t help her laughter. “Claudia… sheep herding dogs look nothing like dogs.”

“Ohhhhhh. Well, they’re still the same breed right? I mean, my dogs are sheep herding dogs and they look like wovles, sorta? I dunno.”

_THERE ARE ANIMALS IN THIS HOUSE? OOOOOH FUUUUUCK NO. OOOOOOOH STARS..._

“So, _how_ do you know Ellis?” Rayla managed to ask after swallowing her panic and shoving away the beginning of plans to break out the dogs in this horror house with the help of Ezran and maybe even Ellis. Maybe they could break the cooler out again.

“I’m actually supposed to start giving her lessons soon.”

“Lessons?”

“Piano.” Rayla’s mouth formed an ‘oh.’ “Yeah, I actually teach Ezran and I guess he was telling her about it because Ellis’ parents contacted me and asked me to teach her as well. Dad’s not happy about the whole arrangement, but as long as they don’t pay for the lesson, he came around and said I could teach her.”

_Back at it with the fucked up control issues, aren’t we Lord Viren?_ “I didn’t know Ezran played piano.”   _Doesn’t know Claudia comes to your practices sometimes, doesn’t know Ezran- who lives in the same “house” as you- plays the freaking piano. You need to start being a lot more observant, Rayla._

“We usually have our lessons on Saturday mornings, but we canceled today because he was going over to Ellis’ house and Soren had me cancel a bunch of stuff for his “fun surprise,” still don’t know what that is. Or _when_ it is. I guess you’re at work on those days.”

“Oh yeah, usually. But I don’t ever hear him practice, though.”

Claudia’s shoulders fell. “That little stink! He told me he practices everyday after school! Ugh he’s probably off playing with Bait. Watch Ellis out practice him, girls are always better at everything.”

“Yeah that’s true, but it’s possible he does!” Rayla laughed, “I’m just starting to realize there’s not much I notice.”

“That’s true.” the other girl shrugged. Then after a moment Claudia added in a soft voice, “Callum and Ezran’s mom actually taught me how to play piano.”

“What, wait really?”

Claudia nodded, bringing more of Rayla’s hair back. “Mhmm. I remember when I was really, really little, Dad would take us over to Uncle Harrow’s house and we would spend nights listening to them play. Harrow would play the guitar and Sarai would play piano and sing. I don’t even think Ez had been born by then. But anyways, I was like six or seven when I finally asked her to teach me, and she did until, well you know…”

“Her death?” Rayla often found herself wishing she could have met Callum and Ezran’s mother, often wondered what Queen Sarai would have thought of the lost Moon Elf. As angry as she wanted to be at the boys for having been born with everything, there were countless moments where she was reminded like a knife in the heart that they only really wanted one thing, their mom back. Rayla was a pretty poor substitute in hindsight.

There was a sadness in Claudia’s expression that Rayla had not even seen when she had spoken of her father’s expectations. “Yeah. I wanted to quit after she did, but Dad wouldn’t let me. At least I did keep going though, I think I would have regretted stopping since it kinda of keeps her memory alive, in a way? I think that’s why Harrow asked me to teach Ez. Callum never did pick it up. It was just too painful for him.”

“He plays guitar.” Rayla whispered, remembering how sometimes he’d be in his room fumbling with the notes on the strange human instrument. Once she’d asked to play for her and it was after a lot of of bothering he did, with a great amount of reluctance; he wasn’t bad, he just kept insisting he was, and that was the annoying part.

“He does?” She perked up. “Oh good. I wonder if Harrow taught him, that would be good for them.”

_It would. It really would._

“Okay, I’m all done!” Claudia announced and twisted a hair tie at the end of the braid with experienced ease. Turning, Rayla inspected Claudia’s handiwork, a stunned smile on her face.

“It’s beautiful. Thanks.” Rayla told her in an almost whisper.

“Don’t act so surprised,” Claudia was giggling, shuffling through one of the vanity’s drawers. “So for makeup-” _Oh shit, right, makeup_ , “I’m not going to do anything extreme, even though that would be fun and we should _totally_ do that sometime, but you have such nice features that I don’t want to take away from that…” One might think that Claudia straight up calling her beautiful only a couple of minutes earlier would sink in, but with every new comment from the other girl, Rayla’s smile took on a new level of dorky and her brain broke yet _again_.

_Imalreadydeadimalreadydeadimalreadyimalreadydeadimalreadydeadimalreadydead-_

That thought continued and increased tenfold as Claudia’s hands cupped Rayla’s face to start applying liquid eyeliner to her eyelids. The cold of the black paint combined with Claudia’s soft skin on her own was almost sensory overload. The comforting and familiar scent of lavender almost drove her insane in that moment. Man, her hands smelled good. Was the touch of a human always this gentle? _Wow, you’re really not holding back with those weird thoughts, are you Rayla?_

“Don’t open your eyes.” whispered Claudia.

_That_ was hard to obey. First off, having eyeliner applied by someone else was weird on _every_ level especially since Rayla only had tried a couple of times herself. In her attempt to be as still as possible, the Moon Elf was sure she started practically vibrating because of course she had to make things difficult for anyone trying to help her. And then there was the fact that Claudia’s insanely pretty face was inches from hers, and this was the perfect opportunity just to look at her. But Rayla didn’t have to keep listening the flutter of her crazy heartbeat with Claudia’s soft (and very cold? Almost as cold as the makeup and the universe that was cruel enough to subject her to having her crush’s freezing hands on her face in such a platonic way) hands on her face, because she was done within the next couple of minutes. “Okay! You can open your eyes now.”

“Okay- oh. Oh wow.”

“Wow is right!”

Claudia had turned her to face the mirror. The changes she had made were minimal like she had promised, but they did the trick. Somehow she didn’t seem so pale and beat up by life itself anymore. Her cheeks were a little rosier and the dark eyeliner brought out her lilac irises. She wasn’t like, Claudia level of stunning, but she did look less ‘I-got-out-of-bed-shoved-leftover-pizza-in-my-mouth-and-went-on-a-run-without-brushing-my-hair’ level of disaster. “It’s just some eyeliner and little blush, and here-” Claudia interrupted Rayla making faces at her improved reflection when she opened a drawer and pulled out a tube of what looked like tinted chapstick, Rayla had seen the brand at the store looking for actual chapstick for Callum, “put this on.”

It only took a few seconds, and then her light pink lips matched the subtle blush. “Thanks for not giving me anything, like, that my hair would get caught in.” Rayla shrugged, adding an awkward laugh, remembering the one time she put on lipgloss and regret it every time she pulled a strand of goopy light silver hair away from her mouth.

“I figured you’d want something practical.” Claudia flipped her hair over her shoulder and chuckled as Rayla put on the light pink chapstick. “See,” she bumped her shoulder playfully, taking the Moon Elf completely off guard. “Not _all_ beauty is impractical.”

“Uhhh....”

“I heard you say that to Callum once.” she flashed a smile that conveyed her feelings weren’t hurt but it did not calm Rayla’s new found panic.

“Uhhh…” Rayla _had_ said that to Callum- about Claudia, back when she was in her first stage of denial of her raging lesbian crush; there were many stages that followed but that stage was defined by lashing out at the other girl whenever her back was turned or her headphones were in and whatever insult she stooped to was always followed by listening to Callum go from actually defending the girl he’d grown up with to shutting her up with “just say you have a crush on Claudia and let me get back to this geometry assignment.”

That little quip might have been what clued Callum into that her hate was just a poor disguise for hopeless infatuation. They’d been eating “lunch”- Callum doodling while not eating his cold chicken nuggets from the school cafeteria while Rayla chugged an iced frappuccino (because this hella rich private school had a fucking barista and a Pizza Hut but the actual cafeteria food was garbage; apparently that was a universal human kingdom thing) and watched glumly as Claudia reapplied the dark shade of purple lipstick she was wearing that day using only a tiny compact mirror with expert precision.

“Why do human girls have to wear _so much_ makeup?” she said to Callum, bending her straw a little too aggressively. It didn’t matter how loud she spoke; the other girl was laser focused on her reflection and was listening to music. She didn’t want to admit at the time how cute it was that Claudia was bopping her head to the rhythm.

Callum didn’t even look up. “What?”

“She spends so much time putting that stuff on her face. It’s impractical, and I don’t get why humans are so obsessed with it. _All_ beauty is impractical.”

In retrospect, Rayla assumed that her music was loud enough and that she didn’t hear a word Rayla had said. She’d also assumed, amidst her jealousy, that Claudia was too clueless to pick up on anything that mattered.

Well, guess she couldn’t have been more wrong.

Rayla bowed her head, rubbing her arm. “I’m sorry… that I said that.”

“It’s okay.” a cold shock on her shoulder made Rayla realize Claudia had put her hand on her. “We’re friends now, and that’s what matters.”

“Yeah.”

For the millionth time that day, Rayla was staring into Claudia’s eyes again. They were just so bright, and she was just so radiating- Rayla couldn’t help but be drawn toward her like there was some sort of gravity pulling them together. Again, there foreheads were almost touching when-

“ACHOO!”

Claudia sneezed. She fucking sneezed, and it was the most adorable thing Rayla had ever heard. This time, Rayla was the one who couldn’t help but burst into laughter. She seemed to have accepted her fate that everytime she had this perceived moment with the girl she liked, something- mostly Rayla herself- was going to ruin it. But it was okay. Claudia was adorable no matter what she was doing and after all, this day had been about all Rayla could have ever ask for. She would take what she could get. They felt… closer, emotionally speaking-if that wasn’t totally weird- and that was enough. Since, you know…

“Soooorry.” moaned Claudia, hitting herself in the head. “Stupid allergies! God, I’m an idiot.”

“No, you’re not. That’s like, the opposite of what you are.” Rayla giggled. _Guess we’re throwing our dignity out to unabashedly flirt, aren’t we Rayla?_ She just couldn’t stop herself.

“Well,” Claudia shrugged, flicking her hair back once more ( _Stars, that’s fucking hot)_ , “I guess me sneezing all over you was the final touch. You are all done!” Then, bopping her on the nose, she added, “ _Damn_ , whatever guy who takes you out tonight is gonna think you look _hot_!”

Rayla’s eyes widened, crossing to look at Claudia’s finger still on her nose.

_IMALREADYDEADIMALREADYDEADIMALREADYDEADIMALREADYDEADIMALREADYDEADIMALREADYDEADIMALREADYFUCKINGDEADIMALREADYDEADIMALREADYDEAD-_

At some point Rayla’s neurons started firing once again and she finally closed her mouth that, in classic Rayla fashion, was hanging open like she was half fish/mostly idiot. “Uhhhhhh, thank you?”

“It’s nothing, girl.” Claudia went to open her door but Rayla grabbed her hand. Where the sudden stupid bravery had come from, she had no idea. But this had to be said.

“No, it isn’t nothing. Thank you for doing this, and I know that I keep saying thank you, but- it’s just that I don’t think you understand… you know, how much this day meant to me. So, thank you. For everything. For buying the outfit, for doing my nails and my hair and my freaking makeup…” _For spending time with me. For looking my way. For distracting me from this stupid date and whatever stupid human boy is waiting on other side of the restaurant all day._ Rayla had just realized that between their heartfelt backstory sessions, and the staring, and the terrifying car rides that she hadn’t thought about the date once. “Thank you.”

“Rayla,” Claudia squeezed her hand, “your welcome.”

Trying not to smile to obnoxiously, Rayla let go of Claudia’s hand and started rubbing her arm. _Be cool, you’re laying on the dork a little too thick. Roll it back, like a lot._ “So… do you have any plans tonight?”

“Yeah,” Claudia nodded, her hands on her hips. “I actually have a date too- oh my gosh I completely forgot! Can you believe?”

“Oh.”

Well. There went Rayla’s good mood. And every other positive emotions she’d felt in the past hour that reminded her she wasn’t dead inside. Now? Now, she just felt sick to her stomach. Because it was like Claudia had just punched her in the freaking stomach. Of course Rayla wasn’t about to let herself daydream that this afternoon had Claudia falling head over heels in love with her but… but it was a painful reminder that friends were all that they would ever be. She had probably had some hot human boy, probably in like college and bleeding green and stupidly good looking, lined up for tonight. Falling for a straight girl- a straight human girl- was all her fault, all on her own shoulders. And this, this painful fact Claudia was gonna knock some idiot off his feet tonight with her striking beauty and enchanting personality, was just another painful reminder of a reality Rayla fit nowhere in. _She doesn’t owe you anything. She didn’t even owe you this._

“I should probably start getting ready, I mean, I don’t even know what I’m gonna wear! Wow.” she snorted, breaking Rayla’s heart _again._ Some unworthy human dude that was probably a rich fuckboy was going to get to listen to her laugh all night. “Like, should I go more subtle with the makeup or like would going full goth scare this suitor away?”

“I…” Rayla swallowed. Stars she looked so excited, her face all lit up, now was probably _not_ the time to shut down and act like a jerk just because of her hurt feelings. “Whatever you think, you’re the expert. Just don’t change too much,” Moon above what was happening to her? No chance and yet she was still taking a shot. “you’re already really pretty.” That last part came out in a total whisper.

“Awh, thanks Ray!” _Dammit._  Of _course_ she had to hear her. Because the universe just hated Rayla. “Hey, do you wanna stay? You totally should, it would be fun-”

“I should go.” Rayla blurted out. She bit her tongue, only to watch as Claudia’s face fell.

“I mean, it’s not like you have to do _my_ makeup,” Claudia gave a defeated laugh and nudged Rayla’s shoulder.

But Rayla just stood there awkwardly, like she did everything, rubbing her arm. She couldn’t bring herself to stay, no matter how badly she wanted to spend more time doing silly human girl things with Claudia. “No, I’ve already overstayed my welcome, and- and I did tell Callum that I was going to be home like an hour ago and the date is like in an hour-”

“Oh! Oh yeah, I should let you go.” Claudia’s happy tone faded away as looked at her feet. _You just found out how desperately she wanted a friend and wanted someone to do these things with and you’re gonna just leave her here?_ One part of her reprimanded at the sight of Claudia’s disappointment, but the other part of her stood her ground. _I can’t stay. I just- I can’t._ “Well, I hope you have fun tonight. Whatever guy you’re seeing is really lucky.”

Scoffing, Rayla shook her head, crossing her arms. “Not as lucky as the guy seeing you.”

“Oh I don’t know about that... Guess I’ll see you on Monday?” Claudia gave her a soft smile as Rayla stepped toward the door, if not reluctantly. This was the end, wasn’t it? She wasn’t ready. She never was ready for the end.

Rayla sent one look back, trying to memorize everything about her, the smile, the sparkle in her eyes, the softness of her expression, because she might not get this chance to be this close again, not like this. “See you on Monday.”

_

For all the terrifying things Rayla had done and experienced, say running away from her parents to train as an elite assassin so she could sneak into a foreign land only to end up living with the most powerful human in the kingdom and attending high school with his step son, standing in front of the lavish restaurant Callum had chosen- _The Luna_ (how creative, Callum), taking deep breaths and trying to steel herself to go in, this had to be one of the most terrifying things. _You can do_ this _Rayla. You’re a warrior, for Earth and Ocean’s sake, and you don’t have to fail at this too._

“But I’m going too, aren’t I?” she hung her head and whispered to an empty parking lot.

Dusk was upon them, and the time had come for Rayla to walk through the grand doors of the restaurant and wait to be seated. Yet here she was, frozen to the sidewalk and flexing her fingers in a vain effort not to have a panic attack. She hadn’t taken a step, but she was making a considerable to keep her balance in the heels Claudia had given her, not used to wearing such impractical footwear. _You can do this! Everyone is expecting you too! Callum will never let you live it down and Claudia gave you a freaking pair of shoes, for crying out loud!_

The heels, black leather (surprise, surprise) open toed, laced up to her ankle and only a few inches off the ground, were one of several parting gifts from Claudia when on her way out the other girl realized Rayla was still in her old Converse. With an impressive speed, Claudia raced back up the grand staircase leaving Rayla to shiver in the presence of Lord Virus’ taxidermy obsession, before coming back a minute later with the heels and a teal leather clutch that carried the same look and feel as snake skin. _Uh, um, what is this made of?_ Still, she took the obvious snake skin with gratitude. At least she had something to shove her phone and empty wallet in for the night.

“One more thing!” Claudia took her hand, her touch electrifying and still freezing, and slid a ring on her index finger. A silver crescent moon. The ring itself didn’t quite close. Rayla actually really, really liked it. It might have been her favorite piece of the outfit Claudia had thrown together. Nostalgia filled her veins as she stood there staring at its reflective light. Runaan may have thought her weak in that moment, but she was suddenly, very homesick for Xadia.

“A moon?”

Claudia winced. “Is that… inappropriate? Cause if it is, I can go pick out something else-”

“No, no this is fine!” Rayla shook her head and swallowed the painful nostalgia. Were there _tears_ in her eyes? “I love it. Thank you”

Awkward goodbyes had followed. Claudia, being Claudia, offered to drive her home, but Rayla knew she had her own date to make herself stunning and radiant for, and she also thought a walk would be good to clear her busy head. But in the two and half miles it was from Lord Vicks Vaporub’s overcompensating-for-something iron gate to the security guards who waved and buzzed her in at Harrow’s, Rayla couldn’t help be let despair consume all her waking thoughts.

_I can’t believe I let myself spend the whole day with her,_ she thought as she waved the heels around, _what was I even thinking? That I was going to somehow come up with a good enough reason to hate her and get over this stupid and damned crush? Or that she’s been harbouring a crush as long as I have? As if! Fucking Stars, I’m such an idiot. She’s even more amazing- and surprisingly tragic- than I could have ever imagined. Moon Above dammit!_

Rayla was only torn from her pathetic pouting when she slumped into the east drawing room on the first floor by someone screaming “INTRUDER!” Without a second thought, Rayla whipped one of the shoes out of her hand and held it at arm's length like one her swords (Ocean, she missed those) “Where!?”

“Oh!” she whirled with the shoe pointed around to find Callum sitting cross legged next to his MSI laptop and one of his many graphing paper notebooks nearby, as well as an open bag of Veggie Straws, “Oh, it’s just you, ha. Didn’t recognize you not looking like an Elf-Zombie hybrid.”

Rayla let out a deep breath through her nostrils and put down the shoe. “Fucking damnit- are you _serious_ Callum? Don’t scare me like that, I was an assassin, remember?”

“I mean you did try to kill me, so… Remember that one time?” he shrugged before laughing at his own bad attempt at a joke. “How’d it go with Claudia, did you combust out of pure lesbian dysfunctionality?”

“Ha, ha.” she rolled her eyes. In all fairness Callum was right on the money, but she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction. Instead of saying anything else, Rayla just flopped onto the couch next to him with her limbs spread out like a starfish.

“Ray, watch the laptop!” he chastised her, moving the expensive piece of technology out of harm’s way.

Rayla just waved him off. “You’re rich, you can buy a new one.”

“ _All_ the stuff for the campaign is on there and you know I stopped using Google Drive after Ez and Ellis hacked me as joke! I still can’t believe they did that.” her eyes closed, she didn’t answer. She already knew the trouble Ezran, a genius in his own right, got into trouble with Ellis’ powerful smarts. “You look really good right now, actually. I’m impressed.”

Blindly, she threw her fist hoping it would meet with his shoulder. “Geeze was that _almost_  a compliment? Like, can you not be a freaking bi disaster for like two seconds? I’m going through a crisis.”

“ _That’s_ not likely. But seriously, tonight’s gonna go better than you think.”

“Oh yeah? Ya got proof?”

“Just trust me Ray.”

“ _That’s_ not likely.”

At some point, he reminded her of the time and Rayla managed to push herself up off the couch and drag herself to the car. “Have fun!” he called out with Veggie Straws in his mouth.

“Bite me.”

During the drive there, she connected her phone to the aux cord and tried playing _The Salt-And-Pepper Diner,_ but Rayla knew was in deep trouble when even that couldn’t break her stupor. She just kept going back to the memory of sitting there with Claudia in the amazing smelling expensive ass car, watching her fumble in trying to explain how her phone connected to the car’s Bluetooth. _Gah, she’s just too cute and I’m gonna think about her the entire freaking night while staring at some gross boy because they are_ all _gross and ugly and Callum is wrong like he is about everything else and this night will be a complete fucking disaster like EVERYTHING ELSE._ She parked her beloved car and shoved her four toed feet into the black heels, trying- and failing- not to think about how Claudia had given her the shoes, how Claudia was kind and compassionate with her all day, Claudia, Claudia, Claudia, beautiful perfect _Claudia_.

_UGH._  And with one final slamming of her forehead into the steering wheel, Rayla grabbed her keys, snakeskin clutch, and what was left of her shattered dignity, and wobbled to the restaurant’s front patio. _Stupid heels. Stupid me who can’t even walk in them. Some practiced warrior… where the hell is everybody?_ For a elegant-ass restaurant in the wealthiest district of Katolis, their was not single privileged human couple feeding each other dinner on the patio in sight, just empty tables topped with white flowers illuminated by the pink sunset. Odd, considering the spring weather.

But everything about today had been odd.

_Empty parking lot, abandoned patio. This isn’t weird at all..._ Rayla took a deep breath. She couldn’t shake the strange yet not unfamiliar feeling she was being followed, and the lack of witnesses around did not help her anxiety. _Great, just what I need. A stalker and/or murderer. Hey, maybe they’re here to do me a favor._

“Just _go_ into the restaurant, Rayla.” she mumbled to herself. At the current moment, she was still stuck to the sidewalk. “Maybe he’ll stand you up and you can tell Callum I told you so. Or maybe whoever is following you will kill you with a steak knife. Maybe you’ll get food poisoning and barf on this human and he’ll never, ever want to see you again. Either way, you’ll get tell Callum ‘I told you so.’”

One more deep breath and Rayla walked through the patio, sunsetting quickly behind her, and opened one of the heavy glass doors. “Woah.”

Aside from the _entire_ restaurant being empty of patrons, it was immaculate, it was stunning. The low amber lighting and candle lit tables draped in silk tablecloths created an intense and fairly romantic ambience. It almost felt like one those fairy tale type bars or maybe even medieval guild, but way cleaner, designed by one of those HGTV hotshots, and with more jazz playing in the background. Definitely _not_ the Moon Elf’s forte. Rayla took in the array of bright white flowers that adorned every table, and row of lively and large ferns that guided any prospective patrons to their reservations. Across the room that really was more of hall, Rayla spotted a aquarium spanning the length of the south wall that rivaled the one in Ezran’s bedroom- the one that served as a second night light for when Bait was “lazy”-  the fish and other sea creatures almost as beautiful as the ones Harrow had chosen for his son. But her favorite part of the restaurant's design, other than the no people thing which had the potential to be both good and bad but right now she was focusing on the fact that no one would see her get a) stood up b) murdered (the preferable option) c) get food poisoning then projectile vomit and/or d) monumentally embarrass herself in some other fashion, were the fairy lights strung across the old wooden beams supporting the ceilings. They reminded her of her own room, where she’d kill to be right now, but their artificial twinkle brought some amount of comfort.

“Ms. Rayla?”

“Huh?” she whirled on her heel and almost into a waiter, who was standing there by the ferns, complete in the classic white button down coat and black apron, holding a cloth towel on one arm and a black leather menu in the other, just as pristine as the rest of the establishment. _Fuck I’m lucky that wasn’t my stupid date._ “Ah, I’m- I’m sorry.”

“No harm done, Miss.” he bowed his head and gestured past the ferns to the dining area. “This way please.”

As she followed him, the sound of her heels echoing off the floor over the smooth jazz, Rayla regarded the empty room once again. “So… where is everyone? I thought this was one of the nicest places in Katolis?” _Also is this a prank show? Am I about to be a victim of a prank and people are just going to jump out from under the tables?_ But she didn’t ask those things.

“The entire restaurant was reserved by the Crown Princes.” replied the waiter, pulling out a chair at an empty table for two. He gestured and Rayla took a seat before he handed her a menu. “They remarked that it was a very special night for some of their friends.”

_Huh._ Rayla gave a solemn nod and swallowed. _If Callum AND Ez set this up, maybe it’s not a prank. Callum might go there, but Ezran would never, probably not to anyone. Ever._ Ezran’s idea of a prank was putting Bait in the laundry basket as a “fun surprise” for the wait staff. Ezran was also ten and regarded the idea of dating as “silly.”

“Your date shall be arriving shortly.” the waiter told her. He then handed her a set of silver ( _this is probably real, geeze)_ bound by an ivory cloth napkin, and said he would be back in a moment to take their beverage orders. After that, he excused himself, leaving Rayla alone in the barren dining area with only her thoughts and the empty seat in front of her.

_If he doesn’t show up in fifteen minutes, I’m legally allowed to leave._ Rayla snorted, opening her menu. She tried to imagine the look on Callum’s face if she were to just show back up in the drawing room he most likely hadn’t left and deliver him _that_ line as a reason for leaving the date early. Still, she put down the menu for a second and pulled her phone out of her snake clutch to keep an eye on the time. _Just in case._

“Stars I’m in over my head.” Rayla whispered to herself when she began reading the menu again, trying to distract herself from glaring at the empty chair facing her and what it meant; had anybody ever heard of these meals? They sounded completely made up- even for human cooking. Beef Tartare- _what’s tartare?_ Fried quail- _hmm that’s a bird, right?_ Wood-fired oysters topped with pepperoni- _do those two things even go together? Cause that just sounds gross._ Branzino grilled over charcoal- _huh?_ Venison Tartare- _again, WHAT is tartare?_ Ricotta Gnudi, served with brown butter honey, sage, and hazelnuts- _that doesn’t even sound real._ Squid ink spaghetti served with lump crab and chili arbol- _okay, WHAT?_ Suns, she just wanted a hamburger. But if that was in this multi paged laminated menu, she’d yet to discover anything of the sort and it was destined to be priced through the roof just like everything else served here.

Callum had given her a hundred dollars before she’d left the mansion. Rayla just lifted an eyebrow and asked “I thought the dude was supposed to pay for the meal? Isn’t that how it works in your seriously gender-antiquated society?”

“Sometimes yeah, but I figured you’d throw a fit about the whole thing and want to split the bill.”

Rayla just scowled and took the money.

Just then, Rayla’s concentration on judging the menu/trying to figure out what the food listed even was and then judging the food and the palettes of humans subsequently was interrupted. A light shuffle had sounded behind her. It would have been too quiet for human hearing, but her heightened elven senses picked up on it. She whirled around, expecting to find either the waiter, her date, or the murderer. _Hey maybe my date_ is _the murderer. Plot twist._

But there was no one. “Hmm.” Nowhere the sound could have come from. Just the ferns staring back at her. “What are you looking at?” she stuck her tongue out at the plants. There, of course, was no response. Because they were plants. Sighing with a certain amount of dejection, she returned to the menu to continue her scrutinizing. It was a fun, but poor attempt, to take her mind off the anxiety in her chest that increased the longer she waited at that empty table.

Realistically, she only waited about five minutes. But it felt like eternity. _This is my own personal hell. Oh,_ this _is The Bad Place!_ she frowned at the menu. She had just abandoned counting the meals with gold shavings and was looking at the prices of wine when, “Ms Rayla, your date for the evening.”

“Oh thanks- ohhhhh _Stars._ ”

All day Rayla had been expecting some terrible excuse for a boy, some hella rich nerd-jerk combo with acne and one too many opinions on how feminism was destroying the kingdom Callum befriended in Board Games Club. If not that, she at least pictured some dude that just looked like they wiped their ass with hundred dollar bills and came to mansplain the whole time. Every single time she imagined her date tonight, she imagined some fuckboy, some gross ugly _dude_. But the person standing behind the waiter, was anything but.

It was Claudia.

_What… the… FUCK?_

Looking back, Rayla was almost certain she had blacked out because she had no memory of how the next forty five seconds played out. There was panic and panic only. Her next point of consciousness was Claudia waving, a bright and happy smile on her face, saying “Hey Rayla!”

“Hi…” she managed, just letting her mouth hang open. As he had done with her, the waiter- an odd look of amusement on his face ( _Oh, laugh it up, Mr. Waiter!)-_ pulled out Claudia’s chair and handed her a menu, which she took with a cheerful thank you.

“Can I start you ladies off with some beverages, tonight?” the waiter had clasped his hands, but Rayla had barely registered his question. She was too busy being torn in half by the urge to drink Claudia in or have such a massive panic attack that it would have registered on the Richter Scale.

“I don’t suppose you can let us have a little wine, Dale?” Claudia blinked her emerald eyes in their waiter- Dale, apparently- and tilted her head to feign innocence.

“Um,” Dale pursed his lips, “you know I cannot, Ms. Claudia. You are still underaged.”

Claudia’s laugh echoed through the restaurant. “Awhh. Oh well then, I’ll just have water. Ooh, with like a little lemon slice, please?”

“Of course, miss. And for you Ms. Rayla?”

_MY DATE IS CLAUDIA?_ MY _DATE IS CLAUDIA? WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK- WHAT KIND OF SICK JOKE IS THE UNIVERSE TRYING TO PULL? THIS A JOKE THIS HAS TO BE A FUCKING JOKE? WHY ON EARTH WOULD SHE AGREE TO GO ON A DATE WITH ME LIKE WHO’S IDEA WAS THIS-_

_Callum. Callum’s behind this._

It made sense. Almost too much sense. He was aware that the Moon Elf wasn’t exactly eyeing human boys on the football team. They _had_ come out to each other, but it had been messy and they never spoke of the conversation (how very _them_ ); Callum had been teasing her one day about this other elven student and how they might look good because Rayla _despised_ him- not like he was too fond of her either- and Rayla became fed up, wanting to just concentrate on her chemistry assignment and shut him up by saying it didn’t matter because she liked girls, except she hadn’t meant to say that and regretted it the instant the emotionally fueled statement was out of her mouth. Callum tried to make her feel better by saying that he wasn’t exactly straight either and then promised over and over not to tell a single soul, but Rayla didn’t speak to him for three days.

Then they were okay, and on speaking terms, even though he slipped up and told Ezran. Right up until he discovered Rayla’s devastating crush on his childhood friend.

Rayla knew he knew about her whole boy repulsion thing, so why did she just assume her date would be a guy? Though she viewed Callum as pesky and annoying with the pension to sometimes come across as insensitive, he wasn’t dumb and he wasn’t flat out cruel.

Or at least until he _set her up_ on a blind date with _Claudia_ , and then let her spend the _entire_ day with her without saying a single fucking word. This was his way of solving what he saw as problem; he wasn’t exactly quiet about how fed up he was with her hopelessness regarding Claudia, so this was him was forcing it.

_So it’s settled_ , Rayla thought to herself,   _I’M GOING TO FUCKING KILL HIM-_

“Rayla?” someone, somewhere back in reality, called her name. Claudia was looking at her, the worry Rayla had come to recognize in her face over the day present in her expression, and so was Dale the waiter.

“Your drink order, Ms. Rayla?” the waiter asked as if this was the third or fourth time he’d asked. And that meant she’d been staring straight at Claudia with wide panicked eyes for at least the last minute or so. _Oh Ocean and Earth, fuuuuuck me._

“Um, water is fine?” gritting her teeth, Rayla glued her eyes to her cloth napkin and tried not to kick herself. _You probably look like a fucking moron. You definitely sound like one._

“Alright ladies,” Dale nodded at both of them, “I will be back with those waters, and your lemon slice Ms. Claudia, in one moment.”

Dale bowed and then proceeded abandoned Rayla with Claudia with only soft jazz to fill the background. _How could you do this to me Dale?_

Hyperventilating as quietly as she could, Rayla braced herself to look at her date. Her date. Her date her date her date her date, that was never going to sound right, it was never going to sound real. It didn’t help that Claudia looked- was- stunning. Her beauty was devastating. It had been foolish, so foolish, of Rayla to believe the way she looked every day was the prettiest she could be. Now? Now she looked like a freaking goddess. A goddess who was _wearing Rayla’s scrunchie still._ As she had mentioned earlier, Claudia had committed to her goth aesthetic. The flamboyant purple eyeshadow and dark eyeliner combined with whatever contour she’d pulled off expertly made her into some queen of death. It was _hot._ Of course the tight little black dress with long lacey sleeves was gorgeous on her, as were the tall black heels she had no hesitation in wearing and no difficulty walking in; she owned the room in them, knocking Rayla off her feet. Not to mention, her _legs._

Why did she have to have such a weakness for tall girls?

The last thing Rayla noticed, her breath still stolen and her voice still missing thanks to the girl in front of her, was the way Claudia had done her hair so similar the way she had done Rayla’s own. It was more subtle and she had let a lot of her hair stay down over her delicate shoulder, but still her head was crowned with a mini version of Rayla’s braid. _Wow. I feel so underdressed now…_ Taking a final ineffective deep breath, Rayla let out a shaky “So…”

“Can you believe I spent all day helping you believe _I_ turned out to be your date!” Claudia beamed at her, a twinkle in her eyes.

“Yeah, I guess I am-” Rayla stopped clean in her self deprecating tracks. “Wait a second, you _didn’t_ know?”

Well, that thought- if true- was lot better than the idea Claudia dragged her around the mall and then tortured her with makeup, her pretty laugh and even prettier smile and didn’t say a single _damn_ thing about meeting her tonight.

Claudia pursed her lips, putting her chin in her hand. “No, Soren set this all up, it was his big surprise. I mean, I did think it was a little weird when you said you had a blind date _too_ -”

Rayla couldn’t help but burst into laughter. It was kind of rude, but in her defense Rayla was nervous as _fuck_ couldn’t help it _,_ plus it was _so_ Claudia. “And you _didn’t_ put it together?”

“I guess I didn’t!” laughed Claudia as she mimed hitting herself in the head, “I just got so swept up in the whole girls trip that I didn’t even think about the date.”

“Yeah, neither did I.” Rayla sighed.

Why did Claudia seem so… Claudia right now? If Rayla had been paired off on a blind date with Rayla, Moon Above would that have been a disappointment. Why did she seem so okay with this and not disgusted by the whole freaking notion? Rayla tried to swallow her panic, knowing the the more time she devoted to her mental spiral the more time was spent _not_ talking and the more awkward and disastrous things became. But she couldn’t pull herself out. Why wasn’t Claudia angry? Was this just another fun platonic thing to her? A thing between girl friends, not girlfriends? Another opportunity to be so unknowingly cruel? How could this mean to Claudia what it meant to her?

A shock of cold skin on her own broke her trainwreck thought process from flying off the track. Claudia had taken her hand.

Without a second thought, Rayla pulled away, cradling her hand like she’d been burned. It almost felt that way. But it didn’t hurt as much as the crushed look on Claudia’s face as she pulled her own hand from the table in slow regret.

_I’m sooooo lost._ Rayla had started her quiet hyperventilating again, praying to the Stars for something to say as a bandaid for _that_ dick move or at least for _fucking_ Dale to come back- like they’d ordered _waters_ like seven minutes ago and there was literally no one else here- when Rayla heard the same shuffle that had startled her before Claudia’s arrival. Then it clicked, and suddenly rage replaced her panic.

“Uhh, excuse me-” Rayla bumped the table trying to get up, because she was fucking fantastic at making painful situations more awkward. “I’m just gonna- I’ll be right back?”

“Oh, where are you going?” So _much_ hope filled Claudia’s voice. As if she was hoping Rayla wouldn’t split. Yeah that would be embarrassing but _why?_ Why did she want her to stay?

“No, no!” Rayla covered, waving her hands, “I’m just going to-” _beat someone up_ “the restroom.”

“Don’t be long.” Claudia gave a little a wave as Rayla back away from the table into the sea of empty ones.

She could see the red of his scarf before she even reached the ferns. The urge to explode on sight was more than tempting, but instead she settled for light steps until she reached the plant, and then dragging him out of them by that stupid scarf of his with only one hand.

_“What_ is the meaning of this?” she hissed through gritted teeth. It was nowhere near as satisfying to whisper as it would have been to scream at him.

“Hi Rayla…” Callum said with a nervous laugh and an equally nervous wave. 

Tightening her grip on his scarf, Rayla whispered “You have thirty seconds to explain all of this, or I’ll be instigating your murder, Prince Callum.”

“I don’t think you’re using that word right-Augh!” she pulled at the scarf, “Okay, okay I’ll explain… in my defense, I only did this because you were too chicken to do anything, so who’s fault is it really- AH!”

He hit the ferns with a thud when Rayla released her grip to throw her hands up. “I was  _ not _ !”

“Were too!” a slightly higher voice rang out, and Rayla’s rage was recharged when fucking  _ Ezran  _ popped out of the plants. With his freaking glow toad.

“ _ Ezran  _ is here? You brought him? What? Is Ellis here  _ too?”  _ Rayla practically shouted.

“No,” shrugged Ezran, but then he added “but she did make me promise to text her constant updates.” He pulled out his jelly covered iPhone and Rayla came the closest she had all night to full on screaming. Considering having a curse word driven meltdown was out the picture now that a ten year old was present.

_ DAMN IT! _

“I don’t care what you think,  _ this  _ was not okay!” she stood her ground, despite being on the  verge of tears. “Why did you think this would even work, Callum? And why did you set me on a blind date with her and let her drag me around all day and not say a word?” 

But Callum was set on standing his own ground. “I didn’t say anything because I knew you would back out! That’s why it had to be a  _ blind _ date, Rayla! If I  _ had  _ told you it was with Claudia, you probably would have faked your own death just to get out of it!” Beside him, Ezran nodded. “And I figured, if I could get you two alone together, which was you know, the whole purpose of the date- then you guys would either figure it out and confess or just confess!”

“She _doesn’t_ like me Callum! Not…” her voice faltered. Why was he making this out to be so easy? “not in that way.”

“Are you serious?”

Okay, there was no way she was taking that tone with him. “You don’t get it, Callum! You could never understand-”

“But I  _ do _ !” Callum threw his hands up, knocking Ezran in the process. But he was so into his heartfelt speech/lecture that he didn’t even notice his little brother mumbling. “I do understand, Rayla! I understand that you’re blind!”

“How dare you? This isn’t- you don’t- ugh! None of this  _ even  _ matters Callum, because she’s-”

“What? Straight? Do you have any evidence to support your statement?” Sun Above, why did he have to be such a jackass sometimes, pushing her like this? Fighting with Callum was always difficult, but this was another level of hurt and discomfort they’d yet to reach. Rayla grit her teeth and settled for staring at a nearby light that was starting to become blurry. “Cause the evidence I have gathered states otherwise. She talks about you, all the time, how ‘cool’ and ‘amazing’ you are-”

“What?” Rayla abandoned the blurry light to stare at them with narrow eyes.

“Whenever you’re not around, yeah. It’s kind of annoying. Scratch that, it’s really annoying. I mean, it’s always like when it's just the two of us studying or you have your headphones in and at first I thought it was curiosity cause she’d never met an elf before and was too intimidated to ask you anything.” Rayla sent him a look. “Thank you, for proving my point. But seriously, she started doing stuff like asking if you were around-”

“She always asks if you’re at home during our piano lessons. Always. Even though I tell her every time that you’re at work.” Ezran interrupted. Bait made a noise of agreement.

“Yeah, like that. And then she asked if she could tag along with me and come see your lacrosse practices on the afternoons she didn’t have dance, and then I thought “it’s almost as if she just wants to see you cause lacrosse is probably the most boring thing in the entire world.”’

_ Claudia  _ asked? But in her response to Rayla’s story about Travis made it sounded like  _ he  _ had asked, as a means of protection from those dumb football players. “You know she read up on elves? One day I found a book in her bag about  _ Moon Elf  _ culture and history. And if you’re still not convinced, you’ve been all over her Snapchat like  _ all  _ day!”

“What are you talking about?” Rayla was still processing the whole Claudia asking about her and talking about her and reading about Moon Elves. None of it seemed real. It all seemed to good to be true. To prove Callum’s point, both brothers produced their cellphones and opened Snapchat, sliding through different photos. Sure enough, there Rayla was.

There was a picture of her in Claudia’s car. When they were walking in the mall and Rayla was glaring at humans for having the gall to stare at her. In line buying the romper, Rayla laughing at something clueless Claudia had said. Then there was a photo of Rayla after Claudia had finished her makeup, captioned “ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS!!!!!”  _ When  _ had she even taken these pictures? And was Rayla really so caught up in her own self hatred she couldn’t even pay attention to reality?

And was  _ Callum  _ right? Had she been blind?  

Rayla grimaced, thinking back to earlier that day.

Claudia had taken her hand, often, with no hesitation. Claudia was taking pictures the whole time. Claudia wanted to see her in  _ every _ outfit. Claudia had brushed her hair back, and led Rayla head first into those intimate moments Rayla had just thought were all in her head. She’d called Rayla cute and beautiful and pretty and hot, like it was nothing yet she meant every word. She never stuttered or tripped on her compliments. They laughed about Callum. All that time, had she actually been…  _ flirting? _

There were other signs too, Rayla realized, rubbing the back of her neck. There was no pictures of a boyfriend among the collage decorating her light purple walls. There was no mention of a boyfriend either or a crush. Not once had they even talked about boys, which Rayla knew was something human teenage girls- scratch that,  _ straight  _ human teenage girls- filled their time with talking about boys and their, Stars she didn’t know, muscles? Hair? The only guy who came up was Callum, but Callum had made it pretty clear on multiple occasions that what he had felt for Claudia was in the past. Plus they were roasting him pretty brutally every chance they got.

The posters on her wall, the music Claudia listened to. All women. Rayla knew that might not be such a big deal or really that big of a hint, but there was no men, zero, on that wall. Not one boy band or like Ed Sheeran (she tried not to shudder in the restaurant) or Drake. She tried to conjure up more names, but they escaped her limited knowledge. And those women were  _ so  _ strikingly gorgeous, but her biggest hint lay in the album “ _ Expectations _ ” that hung in the center of Claudia’s wall.

The debut album of Hayley Kiyoko, a pioneer for queer women in music. Rayla should have recognized her instantly because  _ she  _ did listen to Hayley, however, Rayla’s dumbass distractedness persisted.  _ Ah fuck, Callum was right. I  _ am  _ blind. _

A few months back Rayla had slouched into the mansion after another terrible day of school. Lujanne wasn’t satisfied with the low B she’d pulled off on her last biology test, and Rayla had had to miss lacrosse practice to sit through another one of Lujanne’s lectures that could have been a passive aggressive email and her coach wasn’t too happy with that, cornering her by her locker after the lecture to give one of his own. On the way home, Runaan’s beloved car got a flat tire, so she had to pull over on the highway and put on the spare. Then the sun went down and she lost light, extending the time it took to secure the tire by another twenty minutes. Sore from a series of intense practices that week, Rayla moved at a snail’s pace, wishing desperately for some aspirin and a bottle of water. By the time she pulled into Harrow’s extensive garage, she was ready to crawl up all those damn stairs and crash in her bed for the next twelve hours, perfectly content to listen to the mean voice in her head beat her senseless for ignoring her essay and upcoming history test, when she was met by Callum, Ezran, and Bait in the grand entrance.

They’d been in the midst of bickering about something inconsequential, you know, as siblings do; Rayla’s pounding headache meant she wasn’t paying attention, but then Ez spotted her and shushed Callum. “She’s here!”

“Hey Rayla!” Callum called out before she could head for the stairs. “Come over here, with have something for you.” Ezran gave an emphatic nod while Bait licked his own eyelid.

“It’s not another lecture, is it?” she raised an eyebrow, limping their way.

“Huh? No, what-”

“Nevermind, Cal. What is it?” sighed Rayla.

Ezran held up a poorly wrapped gift with a sad boy on top. Rayla took it, confusion her primary emotion. “It’s not my birthday.” If it was, she’d doubt she even remember since she was drowning in school work. “Wait, is this some human holiday and I was supposed to get you guys a gift, because no one told me and I-”

“It’s not a holiday.” Callum stopped her in her tracks. “It’s just something we saw and thought you’d like.” 

_ That  _ was not the answer she was expecting, but she should have been expecting the tears that came to her eyes.  _ They got me something? For no reason? They thought of me? Ugh, tears, really Rayla? I’m just tired, that’s all this is. Tired and numb and wishing for death and they got me a present just because they felt like it...  _  Her hands began to tremble in the slightest way.

“Open it!” Ezran was buzzing with excitement. Rayla did as he asked, as she always did with Ez, and tore the wrapping paper away, letting it fall to the floor. She was met with the gleam of plastic, several CDs within the gift wrap.

“CDs? They still make these?” she was trying not to sound bitchy or ungrateful, but she did wonder. After all, Harrow was paying for her to have a premium Spotify account ( _ that  _ had been an actual birthday present, one of many from the royal family) and Callum, on more than one occasion, complained about Soren sending him SoundCloud links.

“ _ Yes _ , they still make them!” grumbled Callum.

Rayla brought them closer to inspect them. There were three, _This Side of Paradise, Citrine,_ and _Expectations,_ all by the same artist, who, of course, escaped Rayla’s narrow knowledge. “Hayley Kiyoko?

“Yeah!” Ezran shouted loud enough for his voice to echo down the hall, “She’s a lesbian! Like you!”

But of course, irony was a bitch, because right as he yelled for the whole mansion to hear that Rayla was into girls, King Harrow was walking out the main kitchen, cradling a tupperware dish full of mash potatoes, stuffing spoonfuls in his mouth as he grumbled about something. Ezran’s little comment however, tore the king away from the food, and he only looked at them with wide, stunned eyes. 

Callum let out a loud laugh, and thank the Moon he did because Rayla was about to Naruto Run out of the mansion and as far away as she could and live off the money in her wallet, worried Ezran had just outed her to the most powerful person this side of The Breach (even if that incredibly powerful person was wearing a bathrobe picked out by his wife), and asked his Step Dad “Tough day at work?”

Harrow glanced down at his bowl of mash potatoes, then back at the three of them. “You could say that.” he frowned, then sighed.

He had started to shuffle away in his blue bunny slippers, his attention back on stuffing his stress food in his mouth, but Rayla wasn’t that lucky. Or maybe she was. Harrow poked his head back in with his eyes narrowed “And don’t look at me like that, you guys! I’m all for LGBTQ rights and it’s _not_ because your mother and aunt said that the legislation of inherently homophobic behind my back and then to my face. I’m an ally, and I’ve got your back Rayla! Let’s go lesbians, let’s go!” And then he walked away.

Rayla, Callum, and Ezran all stood in the grand entrance in shocked silence, Rayla and Callum exchanging looks when Ezran asked “That’s good, right?”

“Very.” Callum and Rayla answered at the same time, Rayla letting out a sigh of relief.

“Oh,” Callum added after a second of more weird silence, “we put one of Harrow’s- ack, I mean Dad’s old stereos up in your room. It’s all ready to go.”

Sniffling, Rayla tried to wipe a tear from her eyes as inconspicuously as she could. Ezran still took her hand. “Thanks guys.”

And for the rest of the night, Rayla rotated the CDs, memorizing the lyrics and melodies, finally starting to understand the appeal of human music. She didn’t think about the way she was failing everyone that mattered, and everyone else who didn’t. She didn’t think about her history test or essay or her mentors’ lectures. It was just her and song after song after song. Rayla fell asleep on the floor next to the stereo as  _ Expectations  _ lulled to her into a nightmareless slumber.

“You made a lot that stuff up in your head because you were afraid of getting hurt.” Callum was saying. Rayla sniffled, chastising herself for having the nerve to cry when Claudia had put actual effort into not making her look as dead as she usually did, but she did look at Callum. As harsh as he was being, the soft expression on his face showed that he did still care. He cared so much that he risked her wrath that would come from tricking her. Callum really had thought of everything: making her promise to go, framing it as a blind date, not telling Claudia either cause there was  _ no _ way she could keep that secret, letting her believe he set her up with a boy. It would have been too easy to unravel his intentions if he didn’t lead her on with that detail.

“I’m an idiot, aren’t I?” sighed Rayla.

“Well…” Callum started, only to be stopped by Ezran hitting him on the shoulder.

Rayla smiled at the younger prince, but she couldn’t make it stay. “It’s just… it’s really hard to believe.” Because it was hard to believe, it hurt to hope, because how many times had her expectations really ever become her reality?

“Maybe it would be more convincing to hear it from her.” Callum gave her a smile and pointed back to where Claudia was sitting, still by herself. Rayla risked glancing over her shoulder, and there she was- glowing in the amber light- browsing the menu and chewing on her lip. Butterflies erupted in Rayla’s stomach. Ocean and Earth she hated that feeling, but it was looking like she might have to get used to it. Claudia was here to stay.

Deep down, she knew she should go back over there. Deep down, she knew she was going to, because something kept drawing her back to the human girl. But her feet stayed glued to the floor, one last fear standing in her way. “This is going to blow up in my face you guys,” she sighed, her head hanging, “like everything always does.”

“Claudia will probably think its funny!” Ezran chimed in. “She thinks you’re  _ really  _ funny.”

“That kind of feels like a back handed compliment, Ez. It’s almost like  _ you  _ don’t think I’m funny.” Rayla found herself laughing a little.

“Of course you’re funny! I mean, who else will put mushrooms and anchovies on Cal’s pizza when he’s not looking?”

Rayla snorted at this, and at Callum’s indignant “Hey! But it’s true, she does think you’re funny. You open your mouth and she’s already laughing. Which is saying something cause she hasn’t laughed like at all since Soren moved out.”

“Go back over there!” Ezran encouraged, aided by Callum’s snarky encouragement of his own. “Yeah, you chicken!”

“Okay, okay, I’m going!” Rayla put her hands up in defense, smiling for real this time. Damn them for being so cute, she threw her head back as she walked away, because she needed to ask one more question. “Hey, how’d ya get Bait in here?”

Callum just winked in a stupidly comical fashion. “We told them he’s our Emotional Support Glow Toad.”

“Actually it’s because Dad owns the restaurant.” Ezran was staring at Callum with a very befuddled look.

“Goodbye dorks!”

“You just want to suck the joy out of everything, Ez. I was being funny! But what do you know about that?”

“Hey! Ray laughs at my jokes! And Ellis thinks I’m funny!”

“Ellis thinks everything is funny.”

Rayla came back to the table with a lot more confidence then she had when she practically ran away. Nerves were still eating at her, but she pressed on. Even if Callum had been mistaken, at least Rayla could say that she didn’t ditch, she didn’t run away, she stood her ground. She could at least say she was there for her friend.

“Hey…” Rayla began as she slid back into the seat. Why her palms sweating? Suns, dammit. Immediately she went for the glass of ice water sitting by her menu, looks like Dale had finally got around in his busy schedule to bring them out. Claudia looked up from the menu, a look of poignant relief on her face. Her face lit up with that beautiful smile as she gestured to the ferns.

“I’m guessing that was Callum and Ezran spying in the plants.” she said sweetly, tucking a strand of black hair behind her ear.

“Tot _ ally _ spying.” Rayla chuckled.

Claudia gave a long dramatic sigh before giggling. “Yeah, I bet Soren and Marcos are around here somewhere, probably picked their own plant and brought binoculars. Just what we need,  _ more  _ boys.”

_ I can’t believe I ever thought she was straight. _

“Listen,” Rayla started, taking a long deep breath. “Is this okay?”

Claudia just tilted her head, confusion in her gentle expression. “Of course it, why wouldn’t it be?”

“Well, it’s a blind date, and if this isn’t what you want, then we don’t have to this. I won’t make you stay.” It was time for Rayla to give Claudia an out, like she had done for her so many times.

“Rayla,” Claudia breathed, “this is fine. I mean, this is more than fine, it’s  _ perfect _ ! I have had crush on you for like months, it just never seemed like a good time to tell you. Ever.”

“Huh.”

Yeah, probably not the best response. About as far from the best response to someone’s confessing. And she knew that. Expect  _ no  _ part of Rayla’s brain was working. Claudia had just broken it. Again.

_ This is a dream. This has to be a dream. Because if it’s not a prank, then Callum is right? Callum? SINCE WHEN IS CALLUM RIGHT ABOUT STUFF? _

Rayla’s disbelief was one thing as she just stared at Claudia, her mouth hanging open slightly. Her admiration was another. Here she was again, acting in complete vulnerability and doing so with so much grace and poise.

If there was anything Rayla had learned from the other girl, it was that there was bravery in being vulnerable, and there is vulnerability in being brave.

However, Rayla had waited much too long to say something, and in Claudia’s expression that had slowly morphed from hope into terror, Rayla knew that maybe that bravery had left her.  _ Whoops. _

“Oh no… you’re not saying anything, oh God, I messed this up, I went too far. Dammit, Claudia!” the girl hissed at herself, “Can you not take things overboard for one freaking second like you  _ always  _ do?” And with that heart wrenching statement, Claudia buried her head in her hands.

“No, no, Claudia-” Rayla started panicking, unsure of how to fix this.  _ This is why you talk to people, Rayla! Taaaaalk! Now she’s out here hating herself, great job on that one!  _ “It’s not like that, I mean not like  _ that  _ that, ugh I’m so bad at this, just, fucking Stars Rayla get it together- Can I start over?”

This must have been enough to coax Claudia from her hands. She gave a solemn nod, and Rayla recognized the all too familiar fear of rejection in her emerald eyes. “I-” Oh, so she was really going to say it? She was really gonna go there? “I like you too. A lot, actually,  _ a lot _ .” There was a small smile on Claudia’s face that gave her the courage to keep talking. “But I haven’t always been very kind to you and I really haven’t been a very good friend, so I just… you’re confession just took me by surprise. A lot.  _ A lot  _ a lot.”

_ Yeah... that doesn’t make it any less awkward. _

Despite that little mean voice in her head taunting her every effort, Rayla suddenly felt ten times lighter. Had breathing always been this easy? It had been torture keeping this secret, especially since Claudia was  _ always _ around, to the point that her only way of coping when denying it failed spectacularly was to run away.

One burden down, one million more to go.

The  _ other  _ part of her was losing her  _ fucking  _ mind out of pure happiness. Claudia returned her feelings.  _ Claudia likes me too, holy crap, holy Stars, Claudia likes me too Claudia, beautiful perfect Claudia,  _ she just kept repeating it to herself over and over and over until it seemed real, her cheeks beginning to burn from the smile on her face. Sun Above, when was the last time she was this happy about anything?

“I just never expected you to reciprocate so I kinda acted like a jerk. It hurt too much to say anything and I was just really scared you’d hate me.” finished Rayla. The words were strange on her tongue, but relief did follow, so it was worth it. When she looked up at the other girl, she was beaming, compassion in her striking eyes.

“Well that’s heartbreaking,” she giggled causing Rayla to scoff jokingly, as if half the things Claudia had told her weren’t enough to shatter anyone’s heart, “but I get what you mean. About being scared.”

“Then... maybe it’s a good thing those useless boys took charge?” Rayla told her. In tandem, the turned around to look over where Ezran and Callum had their heads slightly out of the ferns and ducked the second they were spotted.  _ Dumbies. I owe you a gigantic thank you and like a million jelly tarts. And the longest hug in the world. _

“Maybe.” Claudia grinned, her chin resting in her hand when Rayla turned around. “So, do you want to see where this goes?”

Rayla sucked in a breath. “I mean, more than anything but…”

“But?” Claudia looked at her expectantly.

“There’s a real chance I’m gonna fuck this up, Claudia. It’s what I’m good at.”

Claudia snorted, throwing her head back, almost choking on her laughter. “Your self deprecation is really cute sometimes, you know that?”

“I’m serious!” How dare this gorgeous girl flirt with her while she was trying to be serious?

“And so am I!” Claudia grinned, still laughing and when Rayla slumped in her chair, Claudia just let out a sigh, setting her hands out on the table. “I think you’re being too hard on  yourself.”

“Oh, you just had to go there.” Rayla pouted, trying- and failing- not to smile like a dork. How dare she relate this back one of their heartfelt moments?

“I’m serious, Rayla.” and her tone showed that she definitely was. “Will you see where this goes with me? Please?”

Taking a deep breath, Rayla sat up straight and looked her in the eye. Then, in a move of incredible bravery and romance she had no idea she even had in her, Rayla reached across the table and took Claudia’s (still freezing) hand. The other girl looked down, her face contorted as if  _ she  _ was the one trying not to freak out. “Yeah. I do. I guess I kinda owe you that much.”

“I mean,” Claudia shrugged, “you did kind of hit me with a door today.”

The human girl’s melodic laughter rang out through the restaurant at Rayla’s stunned face. “You’re not going to let me live that one down, are you?”

Squeezing her hand, their fingers intertwined, Claudia winked. “Nope.”

The rest of the night was spent daring each other to order the weird food that even Claudia for all her rich valor didn’t even know (“God, why don’t they have pancakes?” “Why this fancy ass restaurant, Claudia? That’s an amazing idea by the way, now I want them.” “We’re going to IHOP next time, no more letting Callum and Soren pick our dates. This food  _ sucks. _ ”) and then flicking pieces of Squid Ink spaghetti at each other, because Rayla was right- it was disgusting, and then bursting into laughter when Claudia tossed a piece at the ferns and they heard Callum start grumbling about ink on his scarf. Gone were the painful get-to-know-you stories from early, replaced by hilarious, still very personal ones, and plenty of painfully embarrassing anecdotes about Callum.

Laughter rang through the empty restaurant, and for now, all the heavy expectations were long forgotten.

  
                       

**Author's Note:**

> I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to keep exploring this universe. I love this idea so much it got a mood board on my pinterest. Every one of Rayla’s anecdotes in the story- from Ezran and Ellis having a Petco Prison Break to Rayla beating the shit out of that homophobic football player- has more to it that what Rayla relates. Plus, I would love to explore Claudia in this setting, and what’s happening with her and Viren (whom I STRONGLY despise, he just reminds me of every slimy manipulative man I’ve ever had to deal with, and I used to be mormon, so...) and I would love to dive into her point of view. Rayla sees her a certain way, but that isn’t the way she sees herself, and she’s got plenty of secrets that Rayla doesn’t know about ;)
> 
> Rayla’s experience in high school is similar to mine. I was stuck with a ton of privileged kids because I went to a really schmancy high school and ran in the academic circles. Listen, anyone who tells you that nerds can’t be homophobic or transphobic or sexist or sometimes flat out racist, is just lying. the potential to be terrible people is totally in them. The dysfunctionality that Rayla and Claudia and even Callum exhibit in the fic is similar to my own maladaptive behavior (look at me, full on projecting) and based on stuff I observed a lot in high school. The skipping meals, the aggravated sleep habits, the obsessively checking the grade system, and more. 
> 
> Also, I made Ezran best friends with Ellis because they just have the potential to be the best Chaotic Good dream team. Plus, in the final episodes, Ezran mentions he has trouble making friends and connects well with animals and I’m all like well there’s a kid over there your age with a giant wolf and a fantastic sense of humor and wonder. Go be her friend.” 
> 
> songs referenced in the fic  
> Black Magic- Little Mix  
> 1950- King Princess  
> Don’t Judge Me- Janelle Monae
> 
> please tell me if you would like me to keep this universe going! also a comment about the fic would make my world!!! 
> 
> also come say hi. i’m on tumblr @heliophobicsoul  
> ~savannnah


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